Illinois

The Illiana Expressway is being pushed in the Indiana legislature as private toll concession. Bills are moving in the Indiana state legislature to allow the expressway to proceed as a toll concession. The state senate bill SB382 has been approved by the transportation committee. A similar house bill HB1312 has yet to be voted.

Illinois State Toll Highway Administration (ISTHA locally known as the Illinois Tollway) announce the completion of what they call their systemwide Rebuild and Widen. They say Dec 19 will mark the opening of the last components of a huge $3 billion project in which they reconstructed and rehabilitated and widened some 120 miles (193km) of their 286 mile (460km) network of Chicago area tollroads.

Transtoll the Macquarie-owned toll systems company has lost Wendy Viellenave to HNTB and Steve Finn to TransCore from their North American office. Viellenave a veteran toll customer service and marketing person was with Transtoll for about two years and will join an HNTB toll operations group. Finn who was chief technology officer at Transtoll North America has gone back to TransCore and is working out of California.

One out of nineteen counts of the US indictment issued today against deposed Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his cronies relates to the Illinois Tollway. Count 18 alleges that Blagojevich and others attempted extortion using the Governor's perceived power over Tollway projects and contracts.

A statement explaining the count is headed "Attempted extortion of Highway Contractor" and reads:

Illinois' House of Representatives voted 114 to one Friday morning for impeachment of Gov Rod Blagojevich, putting the state's chief executive on trial for removal from office for corruption and other abuse of power. The full state Senate will now convene to act as judge and jury with 40 of the chamber's 59 members needed to convict and remove the governor from office.

Some extracts from sharp columnist Michelle Malkin in National Review on "The real housewives of Crook County":

"It’s old news to folks in Chicago, but the woman who masquerades as a sweet gubernatorial spouse dedicated to children’s advocacy is a cutthroat wheeler-dealer in heels who schemed with the gov to fire pesky editorial writers and get herself placed on paid corporate boards in exchange for naming the president-elect’s pick to the Senate.

Illinois Attorney-General Lisa Madigan has asked the state Supreme Court for an injunction preventing Governor Blagojevich from "directing the activities of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority" among other gubernatorial powers. Madigan's 12 page motion titled "PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff v.

The Illinois Tollway is heavily involved in corruption charges following the dramatic arrest of state Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff by the Feds and their indictment on multiple criminal counts.One incident cited in the indictment is Gov Blagojevich saying he expected an Illinois Tollway contractor to raise $500k for his Friends of Blagojevich campa

The Chicago press has run occasional reports over the past three years of federal prosecutors investigating corruption at the Illinois Tollway in connection with vendor contracts at their service plazas or 'oases' as they call them. This morning the thing went national with the Wall Street Journal in an editorial piece headed "The Chicago Boys":

Governor Rod Blagojevich amid lots of hoopla cut the ribbon for the $730m 20km (12.5 mile) extension of the I-355 Tollway in the southwestern part of the greater Chicago area today. Now officially named the Veterans Memorial Tollway the I-355 used to be called the North-South Tollway. There were bicycle rides, walks, a musical tribute to veterans, and of course speeches.

Illinois Tollway has gone for nearly a year now without their violations system operating fully in a difficult back office transition from TransCore to Electronic Transactions Consultants (ETC). A Tollway official says their priorities have been been to get their front end equipment especially open road toll systems working accurately, then to move over to new toll management systems, customer service, with violations processing coming on-line last.