09.07.10

Durbin: Illinois Needs Prsident's Transportation Plan

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today stressed the need for President Barack Obama’s proposal for a six-year plan to rehabilitate the nation’s transportation infrastructure and vowed to work toward its approval in Congress. The President’s plan calls for an initial $50 billion investment to help build and maintain 4,000 miles of rail, rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, and rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of runway.

 

In a letter to the President Durbin wrote: “Your transportation proposal is even more important now because of its potential to create jobs quickly. The unemployment rate in Illinois currently stands at 10.3 percent, above the national rate of 9.6 percent. However, the unemployment rate in the construction industry is much worse, with close to one out of five workers unemployed. An upfront investment of $50 billion into transportation projects could create hundreds of thousands of indirect and direct jobs, helping accelerate our economic recovery.”

 

Currently, Illinois faces a long list of transportation challenges: thirty-four percent of roads are rated in poor or mediocre condition; congestion in Chicago is growing, costing commuters and businesses $7.3 billion a year in wasted time, fuel and environmental damage; increasing volumes of freight coupled with a rapidly aging rail network are challenging Illinois’ status ‘railroad hub of the nation’ is being challenged; and increased capacity and improvements to locks and dams along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers are badly needed.

 

Durbin commended state and local leaders for taking the right steps to begin to tackle these challenges and consistently advocating long-term infrastructure projects that have created jobs and improved Illinois’ transportation system:

 

“Under the leadership of Mayor Daley, Chicago started the CREATE program to unsnarl the rail bottleneck that is choking our national freight system. The CTA and Metra have started planning to repair and replace their aging track and rolling stock. Governor Pat Quinn has taken the lead in implementing a Midwest high speed rail network anchored in Chicago. Elected officials in the Metro East area have locally raised critical funding to bring their levees up to FEMA standards.”

 

Text of the letter appears below:

 

 

September 7, 2010

 

Barack Obama

President

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

 

Dear President Obama:

 

Thank you for your comments yesterday advocating for increased investments into our nation’s infrastructure. I share your belief that a frontloaded long-term transportation reauthorization bill is the best way to create jobs and provide an immediate boost to the economy.

 

Illinois is in desperate need of increased transportation investments. Thirty-four percent of Illinois roads are rated in poor or mediocre condition. Congestion in Chicago is growing, costing commuters and businesses $7.3 billion a year in wasted time, fuel and environmental damage. Illinois’ title of railroad hub of the nation is being challenged by increasing volumes of freight coupled with a rapidly aging rail network. The mass transit system in Northeastern Illinois will need $24.7 billion to reach a state of good repair over the next ten years.

 

Illinois also badly needs increased lock and dam capacity and improvements along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. These rivers are the backbone of our inland waterway transportation system, transporting $12 billion worth of products each year, including over 1 billion bushels of grain to ports around the world. Upgrading these locks and other important flood control projects like levees and reservoirs across Illinois will keep our exports competitive and keep lives and property safe from floods.

 

Illinois has taken the right steps to begin to tackle these challenges. Under the leadership of Mayor Daley, Chicago started the CREATE program to unsnarl the rail bottleneck that is choking our national freight system. The CTA and Metra have started planning to repair and replace their aging track and rolling stock. Governor Pat Quinn has taken the lead in implementing a Midwest high speed rail network anchored in Chicago. Elected officials in the Metro East area have locally raised critical funding to bring their levees up to FEMA standards. However, without a long-term surface transportation bill and Water Resources Development Act bill, the state will not have the certainty of sustained federal investment needed to finish these projects and help us compete in the global economy.

 

Your transportation proposal is even more important now because of its potential to create jobs quickly. The unemployment rate in Illinois currently stands at 10.3 percent, above the national rate of 9.6 percent. However, the unemployment rate in the construction industry is much worse, with close to one out of five workers unemployed. An upfront investment of $50 billion into transportation projects could create hundreds of thousands of indirect and direct jobs, helping accelerate our economic recovery.

 

Passage of a long-term surface transportation bill will also provide long-term benefits that will keep us competitive in an increasingly global economy. Investments into high speed rail have the capability of reawakening a dormant domestic passenger rail manufacturing industry. For decades, the United States dominated the passenger rail rolling stock industry. A dedicated federal investment into high speed rail will help the U.S. reclaim this industry and create thousands of high paying jobs throughout the country.

 

I believe your plan for immediate investments into our transportation network followed by a long term transportation bill is the right action to create jobs. Your leadership on successfully implementing the transportation investments in the Recovery Act proved that targeted investments into our infrastructure can create jobs quickly while leaving lasting improvements to our transportation system.

 

Infrastructure investment has never been a partisan issue. Congress has a long history of passing transportation bills with overwhelmingly bi-partisan votes. The Build America’s Future Coalition Chaired by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governors Schwarzenegger and Rendell have started a campaign to push Congress to work along these historically bi-partisan lines and to take quick action to upgrade our infrastructure.

 

Now is the time to act. I share your goals of implementing this plan quickly and stand ready to work with you and my colleagues in the Senate to getting this done.

 

Sincerely,

Dick Durbin

U.S. Senator