View Single Post
  #3  
Old Posted May 16, 2006, 1:15 AM
Chicago Shawn's Avatar
Chicago Shawn Chicago Shawn is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Chicago
Posts: 2,815
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lukecuj
Greedy Bastards...

one point though, if they do get a big payoff, all the proceeds should be earmared for the Chicago region. No way should this be used to widen i55 from
Springfield to St Louis . or any other bullshit down state project.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lawmakers want to earmark tollway lease money

By John Biemer
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 15, 2006, 3:12 PM CDT


Responding to talk in Springfield of leasing the Illinois tollway to a private company for billions of dollars, two Republican suburban state senators said today the bulk of any such money should be committed to counties traversed by toll roads.

Senators Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) and Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton) said it would be a "disaster for suburban taxpayers and communities" if the process is politicized and the money—estimated at more than $14 billion—is allocated disproportionately to the city of Chicago.
Dillard and Roskam introduced legislation earlier this month requiring that 66 percent of the lease price be used for projects or purposes benefiting counties traversed by tollways.
"During the gubernatorial campaign we need to watch Gov. Blagojevich very closely," Dillard said outside the tollway's Downers Grove headquarters. "Suburbanites should be outraged that decades of their nickels and dimes might be used to bail out Chicago Public Schools, especially since no tollway runs through the city of Chicago."

State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston), who heads appropriations and revenue forecasting panels, has floated the idea of privatizing state toll roads. His idea came after Mayor Richard Daley's 99-year, $1 billion lease with a private firm to run the Chicago Skyway and collect tolls there.

Roskam is running in the west suburban 6th District to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), and today's event was organized by his campaign. The National Republican Congressional Committee has advised its candidates to focus on local issues.
Typical suburban republicans. Its not 'decades of nickels and dimes' from suburbanites that creates the 14 billion from leasing the toll road, what a total load of bull shit. The 14 billion will come from a PRIVATE firm interested in purchasing the roadway. The 'decades of nickels and dimes' have only paid for road improvements on the tollway system and the construction of the extreamly wastefull tollway authority headquaters in Downer's Grove. I agree a leasing deal should be used to bennifit the Chicago region, but to oppose the use of these new funds to help a broken school system, which the suburbs have helped create is disgustingly selfish. True, no toll road under the management of the tollway authority exists within Chicago's city limits, but hello, most of the roads LEAD INTO THE CITY, and would not exist without the city serving as the the hub of the regional spoke expressway system.

And you know what, many of the regional tollyway miles are in Cook County anyway (I-90, I-94 Edens Spur, I-294, section of I-355 extension), so thier point doesn't really make any sense. Just stirring up the me, me, me attitude among suburban constituants that the big bad city is out to rob them of thier precoius nickels and dimes. Doesn't really suprise me though, this is the typical attitude I expect from DuPage County.

Last edited by Chicago Shawn; May 16, 2006 at 1:38 AM.
Reply With Quote