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Illinois Tollway planning for more growth ...
April
12/08
The Illinois Tollway is spending $773 million on
projects in the Rock River Valley, but that won’t be the end of the
work here. John Mitola, chairman of the tollway’s board of directors,
told business and government leaders today that the agency is starting
to plan for its next wave of projects. He said he could see the Jane
Addams Memorial Tollway (Interstate 90) widened to four lanes in each
direction between Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Elgin,
and to three lanes in each direction between Elgin and Rockford... cont... |
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NICTI could announce commuter-rail route this month ...
April
11/08
Local planners may announce their chosen route
for a mass-transit link between Chicagoland and Rockford later this
month. NICTI is considering two commuter-rail options and two
“rapid-bus” options to link the Chicago suburbs with Rockford. The bus
routes would come from the Schaumburg or Elgin areas along Interstate
90 to downtown Rockford... cont... |
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Magazine urges repairs for 2 Chicago icons ...
April
9/08
Chicago is home to two of the 10 infrastructures
in America that Popular Mechanics magazine deems in need of immediate
repairs in its May 2008 issue. The Circle Interchange is a notorious
bottleneck where the Kennedy Expressway (Interstate Highway 90/94) and
the Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate Highway 290) meet. For years, it
has been ranked one of the worst highway bottlenecks in the nation... cont... |
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Selling America roads behind our backs ...
April
6/08
How would you feel if your local airport or
highway was leased and operated by foreign companies?... I know – you
think there's enough to worry about. But that's because you're being
distracted from a growing movement to sell the country right out from
under you. It's happening. The Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll
Road have been leased, the deals coordinated by the Macquarie Group,
an Australian investment consortium heavily invested in leasing U.S.
infrastructure to foreign investment firms. It's big bucks. The Skyway
toll bridge alone leased for $1.82 billion for 99 years. Of course the
first thing the company did was set up a plan for regular toll
increases... cont... |
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Truck driver gets 4 years in i-90 tollway crash that killed 8 ...
April
3/08
A Chicago truck driver blamed for a 2003
Northwest Tollway crash that killed eight women was sentenced to four
years today by a judge who said anything less would minimize the
seriousness of his crime. Vincente Zepeda, 55, stared straight down
and showed little reaction as Judge Sharon Prather handed down the
sentence just one year shy of the maximum possible on his conviction
for eight counts of reckless homicide... cont... |