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Storm Aftermath: Chicago Area Roads Hit Hard ...
March
21/08
Trucks are salting major roadways and expressways,
especially Interstate 90 where the snowstorm was already causing
visibility problems and slick conditions. The icy roadways have likely
played a role in causing accidents on ramps for the area's tollways....
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Two Escape Safely From Exploding Car Along i-90 ...
March
12/08
A freelance photographer got to the scene and captured
one of a series of explosions on tape. Witnesses reported hearing a
total of three explosions. The man and woman inside the car managed to
get out safely. They pulled the car off of I-90 near Route 53 just
before the car caught fire....
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Stolen Porsche pulled from Fox River ...
March
8/08
A silver Porsche pulled out of the Fox River just south
of Interstate 90 on Friday was stolen earlier that day in Chicago. The
keys were in the ignition and the car still in drive when it was
dragged out of the river at Elgin’s Trout Park, said Elgin Deputy
Police Chief Jeffrey Swoboda. Swoboda said authorities did not believe
that the driver of the Cayenne was in the car when it entered the
river....
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Driver leads cops on 50-mile high-speed chase ...
March
8/08
A motorist with a warrant out for his arrest led police
on a high-speed, 50-mile chase for about 40 minutes Thursday night,
one that started in south suburban Calumet City and ended in a crash
just off the Tri-State Tollway in the western suburbs. No one was
hurt. The chase began on the Bishop Ford Freeway (Interstate Highway
94), continued through Chicago's South Side onto the Dan Ryan
Expressway (Interstate Highway 90/94), where Charleston exited twice
before re-entering. He eventually made it to the northbound Stevenson
Expressway (Interstate Highway 55), exited at King Drive, jumped back
on the expressway and exited again at La Grange Road in the southwest
suburbs, Glaser said. The pursuit continued....
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Man Crossing I-90 Struck, Killed ...
March
6/08
An unidentified man was struck and killed while
attempting to cross the eastbound lanes of the Jane Addams Memorial
Tollway (I-90) Tuesday night, Mar. 4, just west of Arlington Heights
Road. A State Police spokesman said the man was struck by a 1988
Toyota while crossing the highway on foot. Arniez Okwuosa of 6011 N.
Winthrop St. in Chicago drove the Toyota and was not cited by police
in the incident. Police said a van had broken down near the scene but
would not speculate if the two were related, citing an ongoing the
investigation....
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Rockford commuter-rail service efforts move along slowly ...
March
5/08
Efforts to bring commuter-rail or bus service to
Rockford are moving forward, albeit at a pace that sometimes resembles
the drive to Chicago. Local planners hope to announce a proposed rail
or bus line between Rockford and the northwest Chicago suburbs by
early April. When their study started in late 2006, they hoped to
finish by October 2007, but they’ve run into several delays. The bus
routes would come from the Elgin or Schaumburg areas along Interstate
90 to downtown Rockford....
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Why no signs for shops, hotels on tollways? ...
March
4/08
You won't find any hotels, restaurants or gas stations
if you exit the Illinois tollway system... that's the impression you
could get if you were a tourist entering the Land of Lincoln from
Indiana. The roadside signs with blue backgrounds, which promote these
sorts of businesses almost everywhere in the country (including along
Interstate 57 and portions of Interstate 80 south of Chicago) are
prohibited wherever they might compete with shops at a tollway plaza
and, sometimes, even when they don't. Jim Garrett, president of the
Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau, has been begging
officials with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and the
Illinois Department of Transportation for four years to erect the
signs. "The tollway authority said that it didn't want to promote
business enterprises that were in competition with its plazas,"
Schmits said. "I pointed out that there are no hotels in the plazas.
They said that didn't matter. All we wanted were signs along the
tollway that said exit here with a list of hotels that were available.
They kept refusing until we threatened to pass legislation that would
force them to put up the signs." The tollway authority eventually
relented, creating a "pilot project" along a small section of I-90 for
hotels only and only after the Elgin Chamber of Commerce agreed to
work out a deal whereby the hotels would pay for the cost of the
signs.....
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