A Look Back From the 90's Through 2009 - Part Two 12/18/09

First, I should remind my readers that USDOT had a change of mission from "Mobility and Efficiency" to "Highways Must Contribute to the Feel and Function of a Community". This "mission change" resulted studying the up to 7 mile back-ups on Federal Highways once "speed and efficiency" got them close to their destinations, with motorists traveling 70+ miles an hour, were slowed to 10 miles and hour or less by endless traffic jams as they neared their destinations. Our movers and shakers, hereafter called MS"s, failed to grasp the change and besides, Peoria was Capital to the "Earthmover of the World", a fact not lost by politicians running for election and reelections.

Then, after suggesting a four lane highway as early as 1995, up to Rt. 80 running on the West side of the Illinois River, LaHood and a few other MS's came up with the only way to get Peoria area folks to Chicago faster was to widen Rt. 29 to a four-lane expressway joining Rt. 80 east of Princeton. (A headline in the JS on September 15, 2000) and the bombshell in March 2001, that LaHood now favored Rt. 29 reconstruction over LaRose and McNabb. Prior to LaHood's decision to spend $300 million on Rt. 29, Paul Vallas, then Gubernatorial Candidate, who has been in Peoria headlines recently, was quoted (JSEB, 1/20/02, "Keeping Chicago Highway Study looks fishy",) as saying IDOT should release the results of their $5 million study. Other MS's were besides themselves and the JSEB in June 2002 wrote "No retrieving chance to build Chicago highway". LaHood agreed some people were disappointed..it was a hard decision but when you make big decisions, they are hard."

Like the decision LaHood made when he became Secretary of Transportation under Obama. His experience in "waffling" on highway roadbeds that were never built and will never be built, evidently not an issue.

You might think that the MS's would have by now given up on Rt. 29. No, they haven't. The Representative LaHood secured a couple million in the 2007 Highway Transportation Bill and on Nov. 6, 2009, the GP Chamber of Commerce listed a request for further studies of Rt. 29 totalling a combination of $1.6 from the Feds and $400,000 from a near bankrupt State of Illinois with engineering to begin in Winter 2009. Projected overall cost now risen from $300 million to an estimated $825 million. (Think $1 billion, give or take a million here or there, as this cost is probably "soft costs" with "hard costs", includes the whole project, I think??).

Mommy's, don't let your kids to grow to be cowboys or cowgirls, but consultants and engineers. Endless opportunities to cash in on governmental largess.

Now on to Part 3; back to the direct route from Peoria to Chicago is back in the undercover news. But not until tomorrow. I've got tennis tonight. The tale of governmental waste grows sadder.