First of all, kudos to the Peoria Times-Observer for putting their articles online. Welcome to the Internet.

Secondly, take a look at this article about the Northmoor Road improvement project. Apparently, they have to plan for five lanes in order to get federal funding, even though they have no intention of building five lanes:

The federal government is willing to pay for a project that only involves three lanes as long as planning is done for five lanes. [Sen. Dale] Risinger said the city has no choice but to go along with the federal government’s wishes.

“This project is well beyond the scope of the city’s ability to pay,” he said. “We need the federal funds … Don’t worry about five lanes being built. That’s the city’s decision. You are the city.”

The article doesn’t say, but I’m going to conjecture that the advantage of planning for five lanes is that it will be less expensive to upgrade if needed in the future. Which means that the federal government evidently sees five lanes as inevitable in the long run. Hopefully the City doesn’t see the three-lane solution as temporary.

But there’s one other thing that I find surprising. Risinger says this road project “is well beyond the scope of the city’s ability to pay.” How can this be? I thought with all the tax base we’re capturing to the north through annexation and the increases in population that come with it, we should be awash in money for infrastructure improvements. How can this infrastructure improvement in North Peoria be beyond our ability to pay?