By: Diane Benjamin
WGLT headline: Regional Planning Commission helps conduct the first Illinois high-speed rail feasibility study
Remember when new tracks were installed just a few years ago? We were told crossings had to be closed and new tracks were needed for high speed rail we supposedly have now!
Flashbacks:
2014: https://blnnews.com/2014/05/20/high-speed-rail-one-hour/
I was at the press conference with Dick Durbin at the old train station in Normal. He gloated over spending billions for high speed rail. The billions were spent for what? We didn’t get high speed rail with the billions already spent?
Read the WGLT story. Some genius thinks people can live here and work in Chicago. Easy commute on a train!
Stories are everywhere of trains not being on time. High speed isn’t high speed when it stops at numerous cities before the final destination.
Is this just a make-work project for labor unions? Read Durbins 2011 press release for this quote:
“This project will create nearly 6,000 direct and indirect jobs, decrease delays and improve performance,” U.S. Senator Mark Kirk said. “High speed rail projects like this one will ensure that Illinois remains at the center of the nation’s infrastructure network, attracting more jobs and making us more economically competitive.”
Flashback 2009: https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.7703.html
Under ARRA, President Obama has made $8 billion available nationwide for high speed passenger rail, the largest investment that the federal government has made in over a decade.
ARRA is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Taxpayers were already billed for high speed rail. It looks like taxpayers will be paying for it again. WGLT forgot to mention that part in their story.
Nobody did a feasibility study before spending BILLIONS just a few years ago? The Regional Planning Commission isn’t elected, you can’t fire the clowns. You can fire the idiots who take their advice though.
Commissioners: https://mcplan.org/about-mcrpc/about-us/the-commission
…and we still dont have a pedestrian underpass yet….I heard its scheduled to open the 12th of Never
Hopefully it’s dead. What a waste of money to save 50 feet.
You go to Linden street crossing there are crossing gates that go down over the sidewalks when a train approaches to kind of send a message to pedestrians that says stop a train is approaching ,and yet you can’t have crossings gates to come down where the trail and sidewalk crosses at the train station Duh! I guess call me slow but why would it make sense to build a $30 million dollar tunnel under the tracks for pedestrians and bicyclists?
And this is the headset of the officials that the voters of normal have put in power. How sad!
Fools! Don’t they know that flying cars are now available and the utopia of living like the Jetsons is just around the corner?!?
The key words in the WGLT article is “cutting down on emissions”. We need more housing because people who work in B-N want to live in B-N? But now people who live in B-N should be able to work in Chicago or St Louis and take the high speed rail? Why does Normal only want a pedestrian underpass without accommodating cars? Why does/did Normal want Vernon down to one car lane in each direction and add bike lanes? Why does the McLean County Regional Planning Commission want to “reimagine” Veteran’s Parkway by adding bike lanes and sidewalks? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. One common theme is it all supports car-less infrastructure.
It supports mayor koos bike shop just a little bit if we are being motivated to move to a car less society
But I am certain that has nothing to do with the decisions made by the normal city council!
Puppets
City Councils are purposely kept in small silos of decision making and not given information in the greater context. The cities’ staff drive the decision making and know exactly what incremental changes are needed to get to the long term goal. They then know how to “sell” them to council. Koo’s bike shop is just a secondary beneficiary. Your attention should not be focused only on Town Council. Widen your lens.
And right on the landing page of Diane’s link to the McLean County Regional Planning Commission web page…
Plans & Studies
“MCRPC is planning for human centric communities that are complete, connected, and compact.” (I.e. no cars and high density.)
I read the title and was sure it was going to be about unit 5. lol.
A little off topic, but why would any sane taxpayer vote for a tax increase??? Don’t politicians do enough tax increases already???
No brains?
Until the tax payers unite stand up and say you people are no longer going to tax us citizens into oblivion the current situation will never change
Those liberal demoncrats will never have enough money
How sad that we are back to before the American revolution where those in America say we will no longer accept your high taxation and the results will be what happened then!
It’s coming
My lens said maybe?