Posted on 12/30/2019 5:22:28 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan.
The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade.
Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet.
The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program.
Marc Poulos, executive director of the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting, said the billboards were a pressure point as lawmakers debated the need for infrastructure spending during spring budget negotiations.
The foundation is affiliated with labor organizations such as Countryside-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150. The union represents people who operate earth-moving equipment, cranes and other big machines used to build highways and bridges.
When state officials decide to increase spending on roads and bridges, they create more jobs and income for Local 150 members. Public safety may seem to be the purpose of an advertising campaign about bridges. But the billboards also could be considered political speech because they used public opinion to create pressure that influenced elected representatives.
I reached out to ask Poulos who deserved credit for thinking of the billboards.
“It was really a combination of factors,” Poulos said. “It started with the shutdown of Lake Shore Drive.”
Authorities declared a “structural emergency” Feb. 11 and closed a northbound Lake Shore Drive bridge in Chicago when steel beams cracked and shifted . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Column: How billboards warning motorists of I-80 bridge safety concerns created one of 2019′s biggest local political stories
How the creepy-looking I-80 Bridges of Will County — I drove over the westbound one in 2014 — stoked a public campaign to support Illinois’ latest infrastructure program.
PING.
Their concern for the public's safety is heartwarming, ehh ?
< snort >
Why waste money on roads and bridges when there are public worker pensions to be raised?
LOL!
Where were they when the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi collapsed in Minneapolis?
(in case you think there's a difference between Unions, Dems, and the MSM)
That’s kind of thuggish demagoguery by the unions isn’t it?
I guess thugs are gonna thug.
FWIW FR’s software has been upgraded and there are no longer limitations on thread title length.
ala...Joe Biden..Keep using fossil fuels and we all die.
Speaking of safety, this is why I worked from home today.
https://twitter.com/DemonBob_Badman/status/1211295163055624197
Once and for all:
"Structurally deficient" ≠ UNSAFE
"Functionally obsolete" ≠ UNSAFE
"Tigger and Jagular" explains it all.
in maine when the state wants more money for roads and infrastructure they stop painting the metal parts of the bridges and it looks all rusty with surface rust.
Ahh unions at work. You need to have graffiti contest. Offer $1000 for the best graffiti where no rust is showing. Krylon the piss out of it and it only cost you $1000. Ugly as hell but protected.
I liked the video of the kid skating down the sidewalk.
Try this one on for size!
https://twitter.com/Alex__Ormsby/status/1210990629251141632
Happy New Year!
Thanks! That will help especially with the Daily Mail stuff.
No problem, FRiend! The changes were very recent, maybe three weeks ago.
Post on, McDuff!
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