WASHINGTON TWP. | As someone who voted for Senate Bill 1, state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, said she felt like a furrier at an animal rights convention on Saturday.

Rogers was among seven area legislators who attended a forum at the Porter County Expo Center hosted by Citizens Against the Privatized Toll Road, or CAPIT. The group opposes construction of the proposed Illiana Expressway, which would connect Interstate 57 in Illinois with Interstate 65 near Lowell and possibly the Indiana Toll Road near LaPorte.

About 1,000 people, mostly from Porter County but with a large contingent from LaPorte and a few from Lake counties, packed the Expo Center to give the legislators a clear message that they don't want the road. SB 1 would give the governor the authority to conduct a study of the route and solicit proposals from private enterprises interested in building and operating it as a toll road.

Laura Blaney, of CAPIT, said if the bill is approved by the House, "It's a done deal that could not be stopped without new legislation."

Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper said the expressway is "the rage" this year the way the Regional Development Authority was the rage four years ago and the Indiana Toll Road lease was the rage two years ago.

Those concepts were supposed to bring in huge sums of money to accomplish a number of major improvements in Northwest Indiana and the state, but Harper said the funding turned out not to be even enough to get commuter service to Valparaiso. Now the RDA is talking about another tax to accomplish its goals, he said.

"This year the rage is the Illiana Expressway to bring progress," he said. "Progress to the people in this room is to live in a community where they have 20 to 25 kids in the classroom. Progress is having their children in 4-H and Cub Scouts and having rural ties."

Morgan Township Trustee Dick Schultz said the road would create dead ends for many local roads, causing problems for police and fire departments and cutting farmers' fields in half. He said the township already is experiencing growth, and it doesn't need the kind of growth the expressway would bring.

John Hodson, president of the Kankakee Valley Historical Society, compared the potential long-term ill effects of the expressway to those resulting from the channelization of the Kankakee River almost 100 years ago. He criticized the destruction of farmland when the push for biofuels is increasing the price of crops.

Several people said the state doesn't need more roads, but it needs to take better care of the ones it has.

A total of 3.500 letters were collected at the forum, Blaney said, and donations were sought to pay for postage and other expenses of the organization.

Rogers said she had been to one other public meeting about the Illiana. It was in Crown Point before the vote on SB 1 and the smaller crowd at that gathering was split in its support of the road.

"After today's meeting, and reading what I have to do to relieve my stress, I'm prepared to compromise," she told the crowd.

The crowd wasn't so much interested in compromise. As one resident said, "We want it gone."