Wastefulness on display at tollway

The Herald’s front page story on Monday, Oct. 19, reminds me of how absolutely wasteful, corrupt and blindingly stupid all of Illinois' public sector entities are.

This story was of the Tollway’s 490 extension project and how it is two years behind, as of now, and $900 million, so far, over budget. How in the world can you be nearly $1 billion over budget unless stupid decisions, terrible management and incompetent people are in charge?

I did some easy research, before the project even got started, the toll authority spent the $29.5 million to Jacobs Engineering for design corridor manager services, $86 million to Knight E/A for more construction corridor management, $21.1 million to V3 Companies for yet more management and $20.4 million to Burns & McDonnel Engineering for yet more construction management. $157 million paid to firms whose job it is to figure things out and establish a budget BEFORE work begins.

In the Herald's article, the toll authority says factors like relocating the UP railroad tracks, limited work windows because of train traffic and FAA issues because of air traffic considerations and bad soil created the cost overruns and time delays. My question is what in the heck did my $157 million for the engineering studies and management get?

The $157 million should have seen that, look at the job, it's along train tracks and under O'Hare. It is so obvious how horribly wasteful Illinois is. It's sad, you can drive I94 north into Wisconsin, same exact road there as here but no tolls, thus no bloated, corrupt toll authority. Wisconsin also has a $319 million budget surplus, apparently not much corruption and waste in that government. Wake up Illinois, time to vote out the blue, wasteful, ridiculously inept government in charge.

Todd Toble

Itasca