(WTTW News)

A long-anticipated effort to create a way to get to O’Hare Airport from the western suburbs advanced Monday, with a key city panel endorsing a plan to sell more than 200 acres of city of Chicago land to the Illinois Tollway.

Designed to ease congestion on the Kennedy Expressway around O’Hare Airport, the plan to build a new north-south tollway, to be known as I-490, along the airport’s western border, will connect Interstate 90 and Interstate 294.

The Chicago City Council’s Aviation Committee unanimously endorsed the plan to sell the tollway authority 202 acres the city owns for $107 million, and allow another 415 acres to be used by tollway officials during construction.

Aviation Committee Chair Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th Ward) said expanding access to the airport will help the city — and O’Hare — recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Efforts to build the new tollway had been stalled because it has to cross over railroad tracks owned by Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific in several locations.

Construction of I-490 is expected to be completed by 2025.

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