Posted on 01/22/2019 10:59:26 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Northern Illinois has its share of public works projects that have languished in the “planning stages” for years without ever seeing an inaugural bucket of concrete poured. Millions spent, nothing delivered. A third airport in Peotone comes to mind. So do the Illiana toll road and, for those with long memories, the Crosstown Expressway proposal of the 1960s and ’70s.
You probably can put the Route 53 extension on the same dusty shelf. Proposals for an expressway that would extend Route 53 into Lake County stretch back to the 1960s. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads
But now the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the arbiter over which transportation projects get whatever federal funding is available for the region, has taken the Route 53 extension off of its priority list. When you say “no federal funding,” you’ve said a lot.
Unbowed, the Illinois Tollway is forging ahead with a $25 million environmental study launched last year to help officials determine if the proposed toll road is needed to handle growth in Lake, northern Cook and eastern McHenry counties. The 25-mile extension would link up Arlington Heights in Cook County to Grayslake in Lake County, and widen a stretch of Route 120.
So while the already dim prospects for the project have grown ever dimmer, the Illinois Tollway is still spending the $25 million. Why?
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
PING.
Absolutely. They should keep spending until the inevitable day when the money will be cut off via bankruptcy. The record amount of money lost by a profligate Democrat state will eventually come to the attention of the voters who have enjoyed the ‘free goodies’ provided by the Dems.
Because the project may get built even if there is no Federal funding available for it.
As a toll authority, the Illinois Tollway can float bonds for the road that may cover almost the entire cost.
Do something about I-90 near O’Hare. Every time my wife and I drive through Chicago from Minneapolis to Elkhart that is the one spot on our trip that ALWAYS jams up day or night.
That money is undoubtedly filling RAT pockets.
Environmental studies have an expiration date. If not used in that period of time, they have to be redone. That does not mean just putting a new date on it. All information going into it must be updated. Generally, it must be used within 5 years.
I got a letter from the Illinois Tollway a week or so ago. Said I owed them $37.10 for toll violations or something. Even had a very dark picture (taken at night) showing the front license plate of my vehicle.
I called em up and said we’ve got a problem. Said the last time I crossed the Illinois state line was some 15 years ago. Changing planes in Chicago. Said I couldn’t remember the last time I drove my own vehicle over the line, and that Indiana didn’t use front license plates.
The call center guy said this happens more frequently than you might think. I got another letter from them a few days later zeroing out “my account”.
LOL
Isn’t government efficiency grand?
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