The Tollway doesn't receive any Federal funds?

^No, it doesn't. (Well, they may have gotten some silly little post-9/11 grant to train tollbooth attendants to look for terrorists or something).

A lot of people think that Interstate or US highway numbers are related to funding sources. But the numbers are assigned by AASHTO, a non-government organization, and have no relationship to funding.

Second Public Meeting for the South Lakefront Transit Study
 

Not to nitpick but that is not true: http://www.illinoistollway.com/pls/p...OK%20FINAL.PDF

Wow, I didn't know that. So basically the entire massive construction program the Tollway just completed was done without Federal funding?

Does Chicago EVER get Federal funding for things? Apart from the pipsqueak CMAQ grants and some stimulus, what has Chicago gotten in the last 15 years?

Wasn't the brown line reconstruction funded at least in part by the Feds? I seem to recall hearing something about it receiving "New Starts" grants, which was a bit unusual since "New Starts" is generally moreso for actual new transit rather than rebuilds/renovations.

The newest funding for the O'Hare expansion is almost all federal since the airlines reneged on their commitment.

Can you be a bit more specific than just blindly linking to a 128-page annual report? What are you disputing and what page is the refutation on? As you see on page 36, for FY 2009 the tollway authority's total income of $640m consisted of $629m from tolls and $11m in investments and concessions.

The postwar era was much like our own era in that political infighting was making it impossible to build the new highways the nation needed to handle the dramatic growth in truck and cross-country auto traffic. The Pennsylvania Turnpike had been a dramatic success from day one, so after the war all the states facing heavy cross-country traffic created turnpike authorities to build these facilities, with the costs entirely paid for by future tolls. Illinois was no exception, opening two radial links and a bypass around Chicago in 1958. Meanwhile, a compromise struck in 1956 had allowed a big increase in gas taxes to fund the new Interstate Highway System, but Chicago got screwed a little by the timing, having already built the tollways and Skyway with user fees and the Eisenhower and Edens with state and local money. The reason the South Expressway was named for Dan Ryan was that he had figured out a way to kickstart the county's expressway construction program by selling bonds against the expected future gas tax revenues that would come back from the state.

Not all the money, of course. It's not like people stopped using the Triborough's bridges and tunnels after a portion of their revenue was redirected to the new MTA umbrella transit agency, instead of simply going to continually build ever more bridges and tunnels.

And in fairness, there is a very indirect subsidy to transit from the tollway --- in recognition of the extensive user-funded system, IDOT gets "tollway credits" from the US DOT which in turn act as the local match to support the bond issues for a variety of transportation projects, including occasionally some transit capital projects.

It's not big money of course, but it's something.

Over 1/3 of the tollways interest expense on its bonds was paid by the federal government in 2009......is that specific enough?

And beyond that the last time I checked the tollway does not have its own police patrol perhaps they reimburse the state for that I do not know; if they do not then there is another subsidy

Like other units of state and local government—including Metra or CTA—ISTHA is able to offer tax-free "municipal" bonds. Because they are tax-free, ISTHA can sell them for lower interest rates than for-profit corporations must offer, and in normal economic times this is sufficient to make the bonds attractive and saleable. As part of the stimulus package during the current recession, the federal government created "Build America Bonds," which offered a direct federal subsidy to revive a moribund municipal bond market by making such bonds more attractive to foreign investors, mutual insurance companies, and others who can't make use of the tax exemption. The subsidy allowed local governments investing in infrastructure to offer higher interest rates than they normally would. ISTHA thus issued 2024 securities at 5.3% that only cost the Tollway 3.4%.

The more general situation is given on p. 26 of the annual report you linked to: "The Tollway does not receive any State or Federal Funding for operational uses."

See page 72 of the document you cite (but apparently didn't read): State Police. ISTHA paid $23m in 2009 for its own group of state police, known as District 15. Fine revenue from citations written on the tollways, however, goes to the state general fund.

Lol, you are completely contradicting yourself. First you say that industry would not have been able to survive in Chicago without the construction of freeways and then you say that completing the 355 ring road would do nothing to spur industrial development in Chicagoland. Hint, the Illiana isn't helping truckers get to the farm fields it passes through, it is helping them get in and out of the 4 or 5 other freeways it ties together without getting stuck in traffic. Where do those freeways all lead to? The south side of Chicago and NW Indiana.

I suppose next you are going to tell me that 294 has done nothing to help industry in Chicago despite the fact that almost all of the largest industrial markets in the metro lie along or are closely linked to it by other freeways. Oh wait, you already claimed that no truckers use it and that they all prefer to sit in Traffic on the Dan Ryan. Most of the trucks you see on the Dan Ryan probably aren't thru traffic. They are probably headed to the various industrial areas that lie along the Dan Ryan and connected Freeways (like 55 or 290) and, in any case, you are offering completely anecdotal evidence like "oh yeah, I see tons of trucks with WI plates that are probably passing through on the Dan Ryan".

... How on earth do massive traffic jams encourage people to move as far away from transit and work as possible?


I suppose you are unaware of the fact that industrials concerns do pay for the costs of such roads. The amount of tax revenue generated as a result of industry is huge. It's a lot harder to dodge taxes when you are physically making something and not just providing an intangible service. Also, I would love to see private individuals build the freeway, but they wouldn't be able to because they do not have the powers of eminent domain that would be necessary for such an undertaking. I guarantee you that all the people lying in the path of the road would hold out for as much money as possible and make it financially unfeasible and that's not to mention the ridiculous legal challenge of getting approval for a private road that would link into public freeways, not to mention the massive liability concerns of operating such a piece of infrastructure.

Your response post claimed that the tollway received no federal funds. Period. That was your claim. Your claim was wrong. Perhaps it is you who cannot read or do not recall your own posts?

I never made the claim that the tollway did not fund the police; I said I did not know and if they did not then that too would be a subsidy. I did not see the reference as I perused the document and never even claimed that the tollway was in fact receiving a subsidy for it.

Bottom line your initial claim that the tollway receives no federal funds is false. Which the document I linked to shows.

I'm just telling you what the status quo is. The last ten years saw a gigantic building boom. That growth was heavily concentrated in greenfield locations and the North Side. The TOD you see in suburban downtowns is a token that was heavily pushed by planners and often subsidized in some form.

These places don't work very well because they're just islands of an urban environment in the midst of a anti-urban one. You still need a car to do most things and the only link to other areas of urbanity is an commuter system where trains are heavily concentrated at rush hours and very infrequent at all other times.

As always, there are a small few exceptions (Des Plaines has seen lots of multi-family development, mostly market-driven) but these are not typical.

I suppose you're unaware of the many, many foreign toll roads that are privately owned? Or, closer to home, the Skyway and Indiana Toll Road?

I assume that any company interested in the road would be a lot shrewder than Macquarie when negotiating the contract.

If the Illiana is really such a slam-dunk, then it should be able to pay for itself with no outside subsidies. Otherwise, I don't think it's a worthy use of limited public resources.

Regarding the eminent domain issue: they could either form a public-private partnership to acquire the land and transfer it to the private company (after Kelo, this should be a breeze) or they could keep the alignment flexible and negotiate for the best deal by pitting landowners against each other. These are cornfields we're talking about. Apart from environmentally-sensitive areas, they can build the road pretty much anywhere.

^^^ Okay, but explaining what the status quo is only shows correlation, not causality. Also, there is nothing to show that the large amounts of TOD along the UP-NW is only a result of city planners pushing it. There is simply too much development for me to believe it is all a result of a planners wet dream. And sure they offered subsidies in a lot of cases, but that is in their best interest as a lot of these communities are now fully built out and have no direction to go gain additional tax revenue but up.


Second, yes I'm aware there are many examples of privately owned toll roads, but very few (almost none in the US) were built privately. For example, the Skybridge was built with public funds and then sold off decades later when they needed the cash. There is no way a developer could just come in and rip an arrow-straight right of way (especially through developed land like the areas the Skybridge passes through) and succeed. There would simply be too many squatters to dodge. As everyone loves to remind me when I go on pro-privatization rants; even the railroads required government assistance in obtaining ROW and that was through largely empty territory.

^The Skyway was built by a public agency (selling revenue bonds), not with public funds. As lawfin is sure to point out, they were indeed municipal bonds, meaning that the Federal Treasury did not receive as revenue a small increment equal to the interest paid on the bond times the owner's marginal tax rate that year.

The reason those industrial brokers were wetting themselves was not over the prospect of revitalizing the Calumet region. It was over the prospect of churning the current users to fresh new spaces out in the cornfields of Newton and Kankakee counties, leaving behind the current spaces and many of the current workers. A region growing as slowly as ours does not need a new ring road every 20 years.

The Skyway is the only local example of a privately-owned toll road.

Illiana does not face those same urban-environment hurdles, as it runs through cornfields. The ROW does not need to be arrow-straight, it can curve and bend to accommodate farmers who are unwilling to sell or who demand high prices, as well as environmental and historical resources. These are the same farmers who sell out for housing developments every day of the week, except that the Illiana is only a narrow strip of 4-lane highway.

The third-airport discussion complicates things, because it's already been documented that politically-connected people purchased land in the Peotone area expecting a payout when funding was approved for airport construction. But that can easily be solved by moving the alignment away from the airport.

And, as Mr. D points out, I don't understand how shifting existing businesses (and residents) into Kankakeeland serves the goal of a more compact, revitalized Chicagoland.

Looks like the platform problems on the Brown Line is finally getting some press:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...6140513.column

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...ds-Repair.html

They're set to spend around $175,000 to fully replace the Francisco platform on top of the $350,000 already spent on piece by piece replacement, and are expecting costs to escalate from there on 7 more platforms that will probably need full replacement. There are 7 other platforms where the problem was identified earlier, and those have been treated and can probably wait a few years for replacement.

Unfortunately the CTA is left to foot the bill since the problem is their fault.

I got off at the Armitage Brown Line on Friday and my heel actually went through one of the platforms and I had to quickly pull my foot back out. I was going to take a picture, but I was already running late. I mentioned to the woman downstairs that there was a hole big enough to step into on the platform and she just thanked me and sighed.

I don't know why they didn't use the synthetic wood that you see all the time now on decks and walkways as opposed to pine.

Well, the designers were balancing both the desire to be historically-accurate and the desire to save money. As I understand it, the project was value-engineered down to the bone, and then cut some more (although there were some perverse incentives like the Arts in Transit stuff that were part of the budget).

However, they couldn't continue to use wood with the traditional creosote treatment because of the concerns about creosote's toxicity. Artificial products would have been too expensive, but like any high-grade building material, the cost savings are made up over time though a longer lifespan and lower maintenance costs.

As an agency that is continually wanting for operating funds, CTA should really be investing in building materials with some longevity. Every time something fails like this, it only exacerbates the budget issues, since the replacement cost has to come out of the already-strained operating budget. Skimping on the materials is penny-wise pound-foolish.

I still have a mixed opinion on the galvanized railings and fixtures... stainless steel wouldn't look right on the historic platforms, but the galvanized stuff will rust much more quickly, and all signs are that the rust won't look very good either. Cor-ten would have been awesome, but apparently I'm the only person in America who actually likes the stuff. (It rusts evenly, so it creates a fairly uniform appearance)