The Chicago metropolitan area could be home to a new outer beltway on the western side of the city that would link Interstate 80 on the south with Interstate 90 on the north.

At this point, plans are very preliminary, according to a report in The Chicago Tribune. U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is seeking federal funding for studies of the project in the federal transportation spending bill now being debated on Capitol Hill.
Such a highway not only must win political support for funding, it also has to pass an environmental review process. It would probably be eight to 10 years before the highway were completed.
As the Illinois Department of Transportation considers the proposal, opponents have been vocal about the proposed highway's effects on suburban sprawl and nearby farmland.
Hastert has been a supporter of a north-south highway since shortly after his first election to Congress in 1986, reports the Tribune. Proponents see the highway being build on the Illinois 47 corridor or west of there.