"Super-Port to the World?" : an impact assessment of the Midwest Inland Port

Abstract

In Macon County, Illinois, one of the most recent and high profile economic development strategies involves the creation of the Midwest Inland Port (MIP), an inland port and intermodal facility. A privately owned public initiative, MIP is an infrastructure-strategy package. Part of the infrastructure includes an intermodal ramp, which is privately owned by ADM, a multinational agricultural processor. The intermodal ramp was funded, in part, by a grant from the state of Illinois. However, neither the grant application nor agreement required an impact assessment of the facility. I argue that a unique confluence of place-based factors facilitated the creation of the MIP and that a preliminary impact assessment should have been included as part of the grant application and agreement, especially in light of the high expectations for the facility. I propose a potential impact assessment methodology that considers transportation and economic impacts at the state, region, and county scales. I apply this methodology to MIP as an illustrative example. Though it is realistically too soon to determine the measurable impact of MIP, I show a means of measuring the potential impact on rail shipments and on local residents. This research enumerates a methodology that examines multi-scale impacts of transportation projects; it explains how a confluence of factors aligned to create a hybrid economic development-infrastructure model; and finally, it raises the possibility of utilizing large transportation infrastructure projects as a means of understanding industrial relations in Illinois.