Free Republic

Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan. The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade. Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet. The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program. Marc...

In the latest step toward the rebirth of San Francisco’s Presidio from an aging former Army base to a bright light of America’s national park system, crews are set to break ground Thursday on a project to build a new 14-acre public park on top of two freeway tunnels near the Golden Gate Bridge. When finished in 2021, the unusual project, called Tunnel Tops, will link Crissy Field, on San Francisco’s waterfront, to the Presidio’s Main Post, parade grounds and visitor’s center. That connection was severed more than 80 years ago when the road to and from the Golden Gate...

I-4 Ultimate’s promise five years ago was that private financing and management would make Florida’s largest road reconstruction project better, faster and cheaper. Today, the 21-mile and $2.3 billion rebuilding of Interstate 4 through metro Orlando is slogging through rising costs to an uncertain finish date, with crews working day and night under the pall of repeated worker fatalities. Some of the issues: - The fifth death of a construction worker last month that preliminary findings say would have been avoidable with a more cautious approach to bridge building that SGL Constructors made mandatory this month. - Construction consortium I-4...

Will a hyperloop work in Pennsylvania? That’s the question officials from legislative and executive branches, statewide agencies, organizations and departments, as well as a handful of private business leaders are trying to answer. Fifty people, invited to a workshop at Dixon University in Harrisburg on Wednesday, met to talk about the possibility of building a hyperloop system in the commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has until April 2020 to complete a $2 million state-legislative commissioned study on its viability. Media wasn’t permitted to attend the invitation-only meeting. According to the turnpike’s research, a hyperloop combines a magnetic levitation train and...

A precautionary boil water advisory has been issued for nearly 900 households in parts of Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhoods after a water main broke on Mount Washington Saturday afternoon. The boil water and flush advisory applies to portions of Ridgemont, Westwood and Elliott, according to the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. Many residents in the area had no water service or experienced low water pressure due to the break, which occurred around 3:30 p.m. along a 16-inch water main on Virginia Avenue at Kearsarge Street, the PWSA said. PWSA officials said the break was isolated and normal water service was...

MARYSVILLE, Wash. — We're taking a look at the worst of the worst traffic spots in western Washington – and some of the solutions to the problem. Marysville A problem spot in Marysville has city and state transportation officials working to come up with a fix. Interstate 5 traffic between Everett and Marysville gets congested during rush hour. According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, between 1980 and 2017, the population of Snohomish County increased 137%. It's expected to gain another 200,000 residents by 2035. This explosive growth increased the number of vehicles using I-5 between Everett and Marysville,...

EL PASO, Texas - ABC-7 has learned the families of the young engaged couple killed when their semi-truck collided with a piece of construction machinery sticking out on Interstate 10 have settled their lawsuit against the company that was overseeing the construction site. The parents of Patrick Van Fossen and Keserie Paredes had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against JAR Construction, accusing JAR of causing the deaths of Van Fossen and Paredes on the early morning of Dec. 21, 2017. In July, ABC-7 reported that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, found numerous safety hazards at JAR's construction...

A new report ranking the deadliest highways in the nation calls Interstate 10 the “most dangerous” in Arizona. But Arizona highway officials say the ranking is incomplete and overlooks a variety of efforts made to make the highway that links the two most populous metro areas in the state as safe as possible. There were 100 fatalities on Arizona’s nearly 400 miles of I-10 from 2015 to 2017, according to ASecureLife’s report, which used statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company, which mainly deals in security systems, said it seeks to report on everyday issues affecting consumers....

Interstate 10 is now three lanes both ways between Tucson and Casa Grande, but your commute probably won’t get faster. The Arizona Department of Transportation projects I-10 could be bumper-to-bumper all the way to Casa Grande during rush hour by 2035. The route currently carries around 60,000 vehicles daily, and that could quadruple depending on the region’s growth, according to an ADOT spokesperson. John Moffatt, director of economic development for Pima County, said those backups won’t just be bad for commuters. He said they will hurt trade with Mexico. “Trucks are like water. They find the path of least resistance...

In 1965, Mary Jane McGuire, her husband Cyril and their three children received a letter from the Michigan State Highway Department. It informed them that their Lansing home, where the family had lived for the past decade, would be demolished to make way for construction of Interstate 496. The letter was followed by an offer of federal dollars to purchase their property, a number the McGuires felt was far below its actual value. The couple’s initial refusal to accept the offer meant they were one of the final families of their African-American neighborhood to be displaced for construction of the...

Walking through the Pittsburgh airport with his wife last October after a beautiful Hawaiian vacation, Matt Scoletti immediately felt the enormous shift that had happened in his hometown. The usual banter and laughter were gone, replaced by a heartbreaking heaviness. A huge sign that adopted the Pittsburgh Steelers logo read “Stronger Than Hate,” in response to the mass shooting in the city that occurred at the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash, and New Light House of Worship on October 27th. Scoletti stood in front of it, and a wave of resolve washed over him. “This was not only an attack...

For more than four hours Saturday night, Mayor Bill Peduto sent multiple messages on Twitter, warning residents and visitors that towing would start at midnight for vehicles parked along the route of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon. Problem is, towing started at 11 p.m., courtesy of the Pittsburgh police and city contractor McGann and Chester Towing & Recovery. Mr. Peduto said he was in Cappy’s Cafe on Walnut Street in Shadyside when people came in about 11:30 p.m. complaining about cars being towed from streets in the area. “People were enraged,” the mayor said Monday, when asked about the...

Toll lane plans for parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 are set to move forward next week, including plans for improvements to the American Legion Bridge. Maryland’s Board of Public Works — Gov. Larry Hogan, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot — is set to formally designate the planned toll lanes as a public-private partnership on May 8 and to support plans for separate phases of construction. Once the public-private partnership designation is approved, the state expects to quickly issue a request for qualifications from private companies so that a short list of the private firms or...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Construction has begun on Rhode Island's new tractor trailer tolling system.The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) crews began installing the first two of 14 planned gantry locations by Exits 2 and 5 on Interstate 95.Lane closures are in effect through next week, then the contractor will test the new system for about a month. These gantries are expected to begin charging trucks by mid-March, once everything is working properly.The ongoing construction is not halting the plans of the Rhode Island Trucking Association (RITA) to sue the state. "It's discriminatory," said RITA President Chris Maxwell. You can't...