Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan.
The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade.
Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet.
The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program.
Marc Poulos, executive director of the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting, said the billboards were a pressure point as lawmakers debated the need for infrastructure spending during spring budget negotiations.
The foundation is affiliated with labor organizations such as Countryside-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150. The union represents people who operate earth-moving equipment, cranes and other big machines used to build highways and bridges.
When state officials decide to increase spending on roads and bridges, they create more jobs and income for Local 150 members. Public safety may seem to be the purpose of an advertising campaign about bridges. But the billboards also could be considered political speech because they used public opinion to create pressure that influenced elected representatives.
I reached out to ask Poulos who deserved credit for thinking of the billboards.
“It was really a combination of factors,” Poulos said. “It started with the shutdown of Lake Shore Drive.”
Authorities declared a “structural emergency” Feb. 11 and closed a northbound Lake Shore Drive bridge in Chicago when steel beams cracked and shifted. A construction company executive declared the emergency was a “wake-up call” about crumbling roads and bridges in the Chicago area and throughout Illinois.
The bridge reopened following emergency repairs, but attention immediately shifted to hundreds of other bridges in desperate need of improvements. Media outlets throughout the state reported on the deteriorated condition of local bridges and how there was no funding plan in place to pay for repairs.
Poulos said Local 150 president and business manager Jim Sweeney suggested they look at the bridges. A Local 150 spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker re-appointed Sweeney to the Illinois Toll Highway Authority Board in late February. Sweeney previously was appointed to the tollway board by Gov. Pat Quinn in 2011 and served until 2015.
“The union was an adamant opponent of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s efforts to weaken organized labor’s power,” the Chicago Tribune reported in February.
Bridge inspection reports publicly available on the Illinois Department of Transportation’s website showed that the I-80 bridges in Joliet were among those in the most urgent need of repair. The westbound bridge had a sufficiency rating of six out of 100, and the eastbound bridge scored a 7.2.
“IDOT played it down,” Poulos recalled, referring to how state officials insisted the bridges were safe for travel and not even subject to weight restrictions. Nonetheless, the agency authorized $5 million in immediate repairs to address structural deficiencies related to the bridges.
The Local 150-supported Fight Back Fund paid for the billboards, which were first displayed in late February to I-80 travelers in both directions near the Joliet bridges. The billboards were inspired by language in IDOT reports that used the terms “critical,” “intolerable” and “high priority for replacement” to describe the bridges.
“We didn’t think it was fair to the motoring public” to have to travel on structures of questionable integrity, Poulos said.
Television news reports fueled anxiety among Will County travelers about the bridges. Joliet’s mayor issued a statement ordering that city workers prepare alternate transportation plans in case the I-80 bridges had to be shut down.
A near-hysteria about the bridges spread throughout Joliet and Will County. On social media and on a local radio station, people talked about their fears that the bridges might collapse. Traffic over the bridges became noticeably lighter as frightened motorists took alternate routes to avoid the interstate.
Meanwhile, in Springfield, the issue was impacting Will County lawmakers during the spring legislative session. Infrastructure was arguably becoming the top priority on a busy agenda that included a new budget, gaming expansion and legalization of marijuana for recreational use.
State Rep. Margo McDermed, R-Mokena, has said I-80 safety was the No. 1 concern among her constituents. McDermed and several other Republican state legislators voted for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois plan.
The six-year program that Pritzker signed into law in June authorized $848 million for I-80 improvements between Route 30 in New Lenox and Ridge Road in Minooka. The I-80 bridges became a “poster child” of the Rebuild Illinois program when Pritzker and other state officials came to Joliet during a media tour, using the bridges as a backdrop as they talked about the program.
After years of inaction by legislators and reluctance to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure needs, the Will County billboards helped generate billions in spending that will create thousands of jobs in the Chicago area and in every part of Illinois.
Those are pretty impressive results for an advertising campaign.
Twitter @tedslowik1
