Naperville officials rallied along Route 59 Thursday to show their support for a capital bill that would include money to pay for widening the always congested Route 59. In case you've been living under a rock, Illinois stands to lose $9 billion in matching federal funds if the Legislature doesn't get off its fanny and pass a capital bill. We haven't had one here in eight years, and school buildings, roads and bridges are falling apart.
No politician wants to raise taxes, but no one wants to toss away all those hard-earned federal dollars, either. Naperville officials and local Rebublican legislators want you to contact Gov. Rod Blagojevich, state Senate leader Emil Jones and House Speaker Mike Madigan and tell them you want to see a capital bill approved by Oct. 1.
Will you do it? Will you bother to call or write your legislative leaders and governor? Would it make any difference in the long run? Would you do it if you knew their e-mail addresses?
Is it too late to cancel Denny's Highway to Nowhere in Yorkville; and spend a little bit of the money on a couple of exit ramps on RT59 & RT47 where it will do some good and return the remaining $250,000,000 to the Treasury since it is money the Federal Government doesn't have in the first place?
Yeah, this one really impressed me. Knocked my shoes off actually. Glad to see our elected officials are on top of a project that should have taken place at least 20 years ago and which they project may take 8-10 more years to get started. Really demonstrates their true worth to the community. Makes me sleep well at night knowing their competence level.
Fact is by the time this bunch of clowns gets this section of road widened to six lanes from 4 lanes it will already be at capacity and those of us who drive it each day will see no net improvement even after the god awful mess it will be for a couple of years while they widen this section of road.
So what really concerns me is not widening the road from 4 to 6 lanes... what does concern me is what is the plan after this because this plan, at best, can only be considered a stop gap plan in terms of true long term planning.