Despite the best intentions of Illinois and Indiana supporters, the Illiana Expressway failed to make the final cut for the Federal Corridors of the Future program.

The U.S. Department of Highways announced last week that the east-west route to connect Interstate 57 in Illinois and I-65 in Indiana did not make the cut.

The Illiana Expressway was a finalist for the designation, but was not among the projects ultimately chosen.

The Illiana was on the "B" list. On the "A" list - the project that did make the cut — is I-94, the Detroit/Chicago National / International Corridor of Choice submitted by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation.

Also making the final cut, was the Interstate 70 initiative, which considers dedicating a commercial truck lane on I-70 that would run through four states, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

The Corridors of the Futures program is a Bush / Cheney Federal Highway Administration program to select key interstate highway routes for massive expansion.

These projects are related to the NAFTA Superhighway program, similar to the Trans Texas Corridor highway design. Project would include massive widening of interstate highways and/or new highway routes with parallel truck only lanes to facilitate huge increases in truck traffic between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

The Illiana Expressway project remains in Indiana’s long range plans.