LaHood Happy With Illinois' Transportation Stimulus Plans

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Apr 2, 2009 10:30PM

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was happy after meeting with state transportation officials and said low bidding by companies on projects means there will be more money available for additional projects. Said LaHood:

"A lot of these bids are coming in well below what was really thought might be the cost for the projects and that will enable us, I think, to have money to spend that maybe we didn't really realize...There's a real pent up demand around the country for people who have not been able to do the kind of infrastructure that they want to do... So a lot of these firms that do this kind of work — build roads and do the construction — are coming in with fairly low bids and hopefully that will create some additional dollars and create some additional jobs."

LaHood gave credit to state leaders for being, "far ahead ... as far as having their projects certified and ready to go." He also made a humorous slip - crediting Governor Ryan instead of Quinn - U.S. Senator Dick Durbin corrected him. [Crain's]