Bush to Sign Transportation Bill Next Week Near Aurora

President Bush will visit the Aurora area next Wednesday to sign into law the new federal transportation spending bill that contains billions for long-sought suburban road projects.

“I’ll be proud to sign a fiscally responsible highway bill next Wednesday in the state of Illinois,” Bush said Wednesday during a Texas speech on his second term goals.

The signing ceremony will take place in Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s district to recognize his efforts in brokering a compromise between a Bush administration that wanted to spend less money and a Congress that wanted to bring home more bacon.

The location is expected to be an Aurora-area manufacturing plant several miles away from the site of the Prairie Parkway, the Hastert- backed connector that will link the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (Interstate 88) with I-80. The transportation bill contains $207 million for the new road.

The spending package also contains $70.4 million to build the Stearns Road bridge over the Fox River in St. Charles Township, $140 million for a DuPage County western access road into O’Hare International Airport, $1.6 million to begin work on straightening Des Plaines’ S-curve, and authorization for Metra’s proposed STAR line linking Joliet to Hoffman Estates to O’Hare. Illinois expects to get $1.2 billion a year in federal transportation money through 2009 – a 33 percent increase over the previous transportation law.