SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — State lawmakers have passed a plan requiring the Illinois Department of Transportation to develop a mobile application to let drivers know about road conditions.

Rep. Norma Hernandez (D-Chicago) told her colleagues Thursday that the app can help drivers be informed about accidents, construction zones, lane closures, and weather conditions.

Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) said this is a common sense piece of legislation, even though Republicans are concerned about the cost. Ammons noted that many college students across the state are making their own mobile apps each year.

"I don't believe it will cost millions of dollars," Ammons said. "It will cost them a little effort for them to recruit a student who is in engineering, who is in computer science, in order to create this app and to maintain it if they want to do that." 

IDOT road conditions

The number of people who died in work zone crashes increased from 586 people in 2010 to 954 people in 2021, according to the National Safety Council.

Some House Republicans argued that IDOT won't be able to create an app with the same backbone as apps created by innovative companies like Google, Apple and TomTom. 

"We're putting them up to fail," said Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore). "And we're not going to have an app that anybody is going to utilize, not because it won't be valuable but because the other information is out there."

Keicher suggested IDOT should visit with any of the online vendors to try and have a plug-in with their applications. House Republicans estimate that the app could cost over $2 million to launch.

Senate Bill 1526 passed out of the House on a 69-40 vote with one member voting present. This proposal previously passed out of the Senate on a 53-4 vote. The plan now heads to Gov. JB Pritzker's desk for his signature of approval. 

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