Project reaps $2.2 million in federal funding
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Printable FormatTHE TELEGRAPH
By Nick Lucchesi
BRIGHTON -- More than $2.2 million in federal funding will be used for Macoupin County road improvement and a Staunton health clinic, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced Saturday.
Durbin met with about 40 residents and County Board members shortly before 11 a.m. alongside Brighton-Bunker Hill Road to announce that $2 million in federal dollars will be used to make safety improvements on the road.
Brighton-Bunker Hill Road, an 11-mile stretch connecting the two towns, has seen increased traffic and accidents in the last few years. County Board President Andy Manar said construction would not begin for at least a year or two. Plans for the road include widening lanes, leveling out hills and valleys and straightening out curves.
Tim Chapman, whose house is at the rural intersection where Durbin spoke, said planned construction would "improve the safety of these roads tremendously."
Durbin said improvements are long overdue.
"It's going to be safer. It's going to be built in a way that's going to make certain that it accommodates growth in population that we all feel in this part of Macoupin County," he said. "County roads, which once were just fine for a little local traffic and farmers, now become critically important in order to make sure we have good, safe economic development."
The $2 million for the road project is part of a larger, $215 million state funding plan Durbin and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., secured from the TEA-3 federal transportation bill. The bill supplies an average of $1.236 billion a year for Illinois' transportation needs.
Fellow Democrats state Sen. Deanna Demuzio of Carlinville and state Rep. Gary Hannig of Litchfield appeared Saturday with Durbin and publicly thanked him for his commitment to the area.
Saturday's announcement was part of a weekend trip to the senator's home state. Later in the day in Staunton, Durbin announced $220,000 to aid the construction of the Rural Health Clinic at Community Memorial Hospital. This is the second disbursement of funds for the clinic; the first chunk was $150,000.
"It's to improve the clinic so that they will be able to provide more health care services," Durbin said. "Coming from Downstate, I'm really concerned about the future of small-town and rural hospitals, so I try to bring federal funds back to give them a helping hand."