Indiana Personal Injury Lawyers
U.S. Route 30 moves across Indiana east to west, connecting with Illinois on the one side and Ohio on the other, with a great part of US-30 being an original section of the famous Lincoln Highway. The Lincoln Highway was the first road that reached across the continental United States, connecting New York City to San Francisco. In Indiana, the portion of U.S. Route 30running from city of Valparaiso west to the Illinois state line overlaps with the historic Lincoln Highway. The Yellowstone Auto Trail also dovetails with U.S. Route 30. Today, drivers can take this single route, U.S. 30, and drive across the country from Astoria, Oregon, to Atlantic City, New Jersey. US-30 is a long, long stretch of highway; in fact, only two other U.S. roadways (U.S. 20 and U.S. 6) are longer. This isn’t an interstate highway, however. At least not for Northwest Hoosiers. In Indiana, US-30 is never a major freeway; instead, it is a divided highway, a rural sort of roadway with two lanes going each way and lots of periodic stoplights at set intersections. Most of those stoplights, and their stop and go traffic, exist in the section of US Route 30 that runs through the Northwest Indiana towns of Hobart, Merrillville, Schererville, and Valparaiso and continues all the way through Indiana to Fort Wayne on the state’s eastern edge.
Illiana Expressway, US Route 30, and Merrillville
For many years, there has been a fight to build another interstate in Northwest Indiana, something called the Illiana Expressway. Many concerns, much of them environmental ones, have been voiced about whether or not this new major federal highway should be constructed; however, things continue to move forward and it appears that the Illiana Expressway will eventually be a reality. If that is true, then for Northwest Indiana, US Route 30 will be forever changed as it is suggested that US 30 will follow a similar path of that new road.
In March 2014, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) was in the process of choosing the final bid for designing, building, and operating the portion of the Illiana Expressway that will move through the State of Indiana with construction estimated to begin in Spring 2015. If the plans are not changed, then the proposed Illiana Expressway will be built to go from northeast of Lowell, Indiana, in Lake County, at I-65 and move toward the Ohio state line near Wilmington at I-55. U.S. Route 30 would be part of the construction where Interstate 65 is involved, widening the road from U.S. Route 30 to Ind. 2. As our Indiana personal injury lawyers note, this, of course, is extremely important to those living in Northwest Indiana, since Interstate 65 intersects with U.S. Route 30 smack dab in the middle of Merrillville and lots of folks’ daily commutes will be impacted by work zone delays.
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured or killed due to the wrongful acts of another, then you may have a legal claim for damages as well as the right to justice against the wrongdoer and you are welcomed to contact a Chicagoland and Indiana personal injury lawyer at Allen Law Group to schedule a free initial legal consultation.
