Illinois, Cook County, and city of Chicago officials were disappointed in their first effort to attract FASTLANE funding authorized by the U.S Department Transportation
"Local transportation and rail officials will have to look for a new pot of money to untangle car and rail traffic on Chicago's South Side after the federal government rejected a $110 million grant request," reports Mary Wisniewski.
The Illinois Department of Transportation, Cook County, the city of Chicago, and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning applied for a FASTLANE grant "to create grade separations at Archer and Kenton avenues, 95th Street and Eggleston Avenue, and Columbus and Maplewood avenues," with the goal of building "underpasses or overpasses to separate cars from freight traffic."
In another outstanding act of federal acronym creation, FASTLANE stands for Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies. The FASTLANE grants were created as part of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, approved in December 2015. As for projects that will receive some of the grant money, Wisniewski reports that "DOT picked 18 projects from other states out of 212 applications for a total of about $760 million. Awards will be announced after a 60-day congressional review period."
FULL STORY: Local, rail officials won't get $110 million grant for South Side projects
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