SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — The Illinois Department of Transportation will soon develop a mobile application to let drivers know about road conditions. 

A state law going into effect January 1 requires IDOT to create an app to help drivers stay informed about accidents, construction zones, lane closures and weather conditions.

Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) believes this is a common sense idea, even though Republican lawmakers were concerned about the cost. 

Ammons said many college students 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."

House Republicans believe IDOT won't be able to create an app with the same backbone as apps designed by Google or Apple. 

"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."

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.

Keicher suggested IDOT should visit with any of the online vendors to try and have a plug-in with their applications. Some lawmakers estimated 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 on May 11. This plan passed out of the Senate on a 53-4 vote on March 29.

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