<p>Time is the one resource none of us can replace.</p><p>When congestion adds 20 to 30 minutes to a commute, the loss means less time with family and for everything else that matters.</p><p>That is why the Illinois Tollway’s <a class="Link" href="https://news.wttw.com/2026/07/27/illinois-tollway-proposes-265-billion-capital-projects-plan-57-toll-hike-illinois" target="_blank" >Driving Connections Plan</a>, <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/transportation/2026/08/19/illinois-tollway-toll-hike" >approved </a>by the agency's board Wednesday, deserves public support. The 15-year, $26.5 billion program will improve roads, bridges and interchanges across all five corridors. Carried out responsibly, it can strengthen the regional economy while returning time to Illinoisans.</p><p>We have seen what better connections can accomplish. Improvements along the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (Interstate 90) cut some trips by about 25 minutes. The interchange connecting I-294 and I-57 saves some drivers as much as 13 minutes per trip.</p><p>For someone saving 25 minutes each way, that exceeds four hours a week. Over a 50-week working year, it is more than 200 hours — or eight days — given back.</p><p>Multiply that impact across thousands of travelers. Employees arrive more reliably. Deliveries face fewer delays. Businesses reach more customers. Parents get home sooner. Time saved on the road does not disappear; people put it to use.</p><p>Better connections can also change a community’s economic outlook. Businesses need reliable access to workers, customers, suppliers, airports and rail terminals. Unpredictable congestion adds costs and limits opportunity.</p><p>After I-90 was improved, the surrounding area recorded a $650 million increase in assessed value and added 6.4 million square feet of industrial, commercial, retail and residential development. The I-294/I-57 interchange, where two major highways once crossed without a direct connection, has opened surrounding communities to new development opportunities.</p><p>Driving Connections can build on those results. Modernizing interchanges, replacing aging infrastructure and improving traffic flow can shorten commutes, expand access to jobs and make land more attractive for development.</p><p>No project can eliminate every delay or guarantee growth. But thoughtful investments in busy corridors can create benefits lasting decades.</p><p>We should judge Driving Connections by more than miles rebuilt, bridges replaced, and yes — increased toll rates. We should ask how much time is saved by travelers, how many opportunities communities gain and whether businesses can move people and goods more reliably.</p><p>Infrastructure is about getting to work, delivering to a customer and making it home sooner.</p><p>That is time well worth investing in.</p><p><i>Kevin Artl, president and CEO, American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois</i></p><div class="RichTextSidebarModule Enhancement" data-module data-align-center><a class="AnchorLink" id="module-c60000" name="module-c60000"></a>
<div class="RichTextModule-items RichTextBody"><h3>Give us your take</h3><br>Send letters to the editor to <a class="Link" href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" >[email protected]</a>. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of approximately 375 words.</div>
</div><p></p><h3>Coach airline passengers need more bathrooms</h3><p>If airline customers were prison inmates, they would still be guaranteed greater lavatory access inside an airplane.</p><p>As outlined by <a class="Link" href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/illinois/Ill-Admin-Code-tit-20-SS-701.80" target="_blank" >law in Illinois</a>, where United Airlines is headquartered, inmates are awarded one lavatory per eight prisoners. Yet many mid-sized flights offer coach passengers access to two or three toilets.</p><p>This absurd first-class restriction of a highly limited commodity increases coach passengers’ risks from turbulence by delaying their return to the safety of their seats. Those allowed to board early, including parents with young children or the mobility-challenged, have the same risks once the flight starts.</p><p>While I was flying inbound to Chicago recently, a terse United flight attendant forbade a neatly dressed woman sitting next to me in coach from using the front lavatory. No consideration was given either to a woman holding an infant or an elderly gentleman, both of whom balanced between the seats in the growing line for a rear restroom.</p><p>One small consolation: A man in a Marines polo was permitted to use the front facilities reserved for first-class or business-class passengers. But one has to wonder whether every armed services member has to wear military gear publicly to be treated with equal dignity on flights.</p><p>Such blatant lack of bathroom access is not acceptable by law in nearly every other industry. <a class="Link" href="https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.141" target="_blank" ><u>OSHA standards</u></a> dictate six toilet facilities be provided for 111 or more employees. In contrast, the popular Boeing 737-700, which carries a maximum of <a class="Link" href="https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737ng" target="_blank" ><u>149 passengers</u></a>, has only two to three lavatories.</p><p>First-class passengers pay for the privileges of more legroom, early boarding and a better class of snacks. But a complimentary drink does not entitle them to a private bathroom as well, while fellow passengers are forced to endure an unsafe wait for basic bodily care.</p><p>Americans have done away with kings. We would do well to ditch such royal entitlements, including private throne rooms, in our skies as well.</p><p><i>Emily Burton Sherman, Greenville, Kentucky</i> </p><h3>Trump is no Teddy Roosevelt</h3><p>I recently visited the new <a class="Link" href="https://www.trlibrary.com/" target="_blank" >Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library</a> in western North Dakota. As I read quotes from "TR" that were displayed on the library's walls, I wondered which quotes were embraced by Donald Trump, who <a class="Link" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-trump-attends-theodore-roosevelt-presidential-library-dedication-ceremony" target="_blank" >attended </a>the library's opening and fancies himself as qualified to be displayed beside Roosevelt's likeness on <a class="Link" href="https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-heads-mount-rushmore-kick-off-america-250/story?id=134443201" target="_blank" >Mount Rushmore</a>.</p><p>I'm sure Trump would approve of Roosevelt's belief that the United States should be an expansionist nation that would acquire territory for itself, as it had just done in the Spanish-American War, which took place a few years before Roosevelt became president, thus establishing a nascent American empire. Trump has shown such tastes with his proposals to annex Greenland and absorb Canada as the 51st state.</p><p>However, Roosevelt believed the government should determine whether corporations were acting in the public interest and break up monopolies that weren't giving what he called a "square deal" to all Americans. Contrast that with Trump's seeming view that the strong exploiting ordinary citizens is the proper order of things and that the government should not obstruct such behavior. Trump has consistently eliminated government protections for citizens against the powerful.</p><p>What likely furrowed Trump's brow — if he saw it on the library wall — was part of a Roosevelt <a class="Link" href="https://www.trlibrary.com/tr/fake-quotes" target="_blank" >quote that states</a>, "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president …"</p><p>Our current president has obvious difficulty distinguishing one from the other. The government observations of the <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/letters-to-the-editor/2026/07/03/america-july-fourth-immigrants-trump-national-anthem-oak-tree-civil-rights-racism-religion" target="_blank" >250th anniversary</a> of the Declaration of Independence undoubtedly incorporated more than a little input from the president and became, as so many things do these days, vehicles for drawing attention to Trump.</p><p>When Roosevelt wrote the words above, he showed his superior humility. He understood his place in the order of things far better than Trump does. This did not prevent Roosevelt from being far more accomplished than Trump can realistically dream of being.</p><p><i>Curt Fredrikson, Mokena</i></p><h3>Mailing it in</h3><p>Despite complaining loudly and often about mail-in voting, and while trying to eliminate or at least severely restrict it, Donald Trump, once again, <a class="Link" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/trump-vote-by-mail-primaries-florida-01039292" target="_blank" >voted by mail</a> in Florida's Republican primary. When asked about it, he said he was too busy with his duties to go to Florida to vote. Interesting that Trump is not too busy to frequently go to Florida, at taxpayers’ expense, to play golf and host parties for his cronies and not too busy to fly off to various places, again on the taxpayers’ nickel, to watch sporting events.</p><p><i>William P. Gottschalk, Lake Forest</i></p><h3><b>India’s arms trade with Israel may come at a cost </b></h3><p>India has <a class="Link" href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/4-obstacles-to-india-joining-the-un-security-council/" target="_blank" >spent decades</a> seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. A recent Amnesty International <a class="Link" href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/07/india-continuing-weapons-exports-to-israel-could-risk-complicity-in-ongoing-genocide-in-gaza-new-investigation/" target="_blank" >report</a> raises a question India should consider carefully: Could its military trade with Israel undermine that ambition?</p><p>Amnesty reports that Indian state-owned and private companies supplied weapons, ammunition, military components and dual-use goods to Israel after Oct. 7, 2023, as civilian casualties in Gaza grew, along with allegations of international law violations.</p><p>The report is not a judicial finding that India committed war crimes or participated in genocide. Nor does it establish that every Indian product was used in an unlawful attack.</p><p>But that is not the only relevant standard.</p><p>Governments authorizing military exports are expected to evaluate the foreseeable risk that weapons or components may contribute to violations of international humanitarian law. India should clarify what legal reviews, end-use assessments and safeguards accompanied these exports as international warnings intensified.</p><p>There is also a diplomatic cost that India underestimates.</p><p>On June 3, Germany unexpectedly <a class="Link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/4/did-germany-lose-its-unsc-seat-because-of-support-for-israel" target="_blank" >lost its bid</a> for a 2027–2028 Security Council seat, receiving 104 votes to Portugal’s 134 and Austria’s 131. Because the ballot was secret, the reasons behind individual government's votes cannot be established with certainty. But German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul acknowledged afterward that Germany’s position on Israel may have cost it support.</p><p>Germany’s defeat offers India a warning.</p><p>Security Council membership depends on support from other governments, including many states in Africa, Asia and Latin America where frustration with perceived Western double standards over Gaza is substantial.</p><p>India seeks far more than the temporary seat Germany lost — it aims for permanent membership and authority to help determine questions of war, peace and international security.</p><p>India, which has the <a class="Link" href="https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/artc-palestinian-authority-backs-india-s-unsc-bid-in-hopes-of-furthering-peace-in-the-region" target="_blank" >Palestinian Authority’s support</a> for a council seat, should consider whether commercial and strategic benefits from supplying Israel’s defense sector are worth jeopardizing that larger objective.</p><p>This is not ordinary trade. It involves weapons and military material supplied during a conflict under extraordinary international legal scrutiny.</p><p>A country seeking permanent authority over international peace and security should not allow the business of weapons to weaken its claim to global leadership. India would be better served by strategic realism than by allowing a perceived civilizational affinity with Israel to compromise a far larger diplomatic objective.</p><p><i>Rasheed Ahmed, executive director, Indian American Muslim Council</i></p><h3></h3><h3>Judge brushed off animal cruelty</h3><p>What is the world coming to when video evidence shows a man repeatedly kicking a downed animal and a <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdogs/2026/08/18/mchenry-county-judge-acquits-backyard-rodeo-steer-woodstock" >judge acquits him </a>of animal cruelty?</p><p>McHenry County Judge Justin Hansen focused on how the kicks landed and were delivered, per Sun-Times reporter Robert Herguth's story, while the steer was unable or unwilling to stand. Hansen also said "there's no indication that the animal is affected or bothered by what happened" and that "there's not a clear definition" for cruelty to animals. </p><p>Is the judge sane? </p><p>I think that an animal being kicked in the head more than 10 times qualifies as cruelty! A few day in jail would have sufficed, but the perpetrator is free. </p><p>The judge also sentenced three men to conditional discharge for ripping tails from steers.</p><p>Hansen should be removed from the bench. And this far northwest suburban rodeo should be shut down!</p><p><i>Carol Kraines, Deerfield</i></p><h3><b>ICE needs more oversight, not more power</b></h3><p>As Americans celebrate 250 years of our nation’s history, it is deeply troubling to see proposals that would give U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents even more tools to use against the public, including reported plans for <a class="Link" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-says-electric-shock-gloves-will-curb-use-deadly-force-record-casts-rcna593122" target="_blank" >gloves capable of delivering an electrical shock</a> to people they touch.</p><p>This is beyond excessive. At a time when there are already serious concerns about the tactics and authority of ICE, the answer should be greater oversight and accountability — not expanding the agency’s ability to intimidate or physically control people.</p><p>Our democracy was built on the principle that government power must have limits. Giving federal law enforcement additional tools to use force against people, particularly without clear and stringent safeguards, runs contrary to those fundamental democratic values.</p><p>ICE needs to be reined in, not empowered with additional means of coercion. The 250th anniversary of our democracy should remind us that liberty and government accountability are worth protecting — not sacrificing.</p><p><i>Mark Warchol, Palos Hills</i></p><h3>More term limits, please</h3><p>I agree with Rich Miller that the Illinois House speaker and Senate president should have <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2026/08/14/10-year-term-limit-speaker-house-senate-president-welch-madigan-harmon-rich-miller" target="_blank" >10-year term limits</a>. Every American politician should have term limits. You should not be able to spend 30-40 years in office, and you should not be allowed to serve if you're in your 90s. Change is good, and new perspectives are needed. We might have fewer corrupt politicians and those with self-serving agendas with more term limits.</p><p><i>Richard Barber, Mount Greenwood</i><br></p>
Tollway hike will improve infrastructure, save commute time, boost economy 2026
IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2026 2026-08-22 11:27:20
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