Governor
Rauner’s newly appointed Secretary of Transportation Randy Blankenhorn warned
in a speech September 3 at the City Club of Chicago that his agency is far
behind the times: “I’m afraid that we’re planning for yesterday’s
transportation system,” he told his audience of transportation professionals.
Describing a bus load of four year olds driven for an hour each way to and from
preschool, Blankenhorn complained: “That’s a transportation system that is not
working.”
Reporting
on the results of his listening tour around the state following his
appointment, Blankenhorn said one logistics executive told him the business the
state’s highways and intermodal rail facilities as its warehouses, because of
the slow pace of freight movement across the state. “IDOT is not going to come
up with the solution,” he warned, “It is going to be you. … Do we continue to
build overhead message signs that tell me how late I am, or do we do a better
job?”
In
response to one question about designating high occupancy vehicle lanes on
existing superhighways, Blankenhorn said he would prefer adding express toll
lanes as roads are widened, so drivers needing to speed along to their
destinations could pay for the privilege. He said tolls for such express lane
usage would vary depending on the time of day and the traffic congestion
conditions.
In
concluding his address, Blankenhorn pointed out that nothing is likely to
change regarding plans for future transportation needs until Governor Rauner
and Speaker Madigan work out their budget differences, and get the legislature
back to work on the stacks and stacks of other legislation remaining to be
processed.
