Illinois Tollway contracts worth US$220 million

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority - which maintains and operates over 466km of roadways across northern Illinois in US - has awarded construction and engineering contracts worth almost US$229 million to improve the Illinois Tollway.

The agency’s board of directors approved six new construction and professional engineering project contracts for the road, which operates a user-fee system, including a US$184 million contract to reconstruct the northbound Mile Long bridge. 

According to the organisation reconstruction of the Mile Long Bridge, which carries up to 150,000 vehicles a day, forms part of a larger US$4 billion Central Tri-State Tollway Project. The agency said the US$184 million contract - the first of two to be given out for work to remove and reconstruct the twin structure - was the largest construction contract it had ever awarded.

The agency, which receives no state or federal funding, set up the Move Illinois capital program in order to raise US$14 billion to improve mobility and reduce congestion and pollution in the US state.

Of the contracts awarded by the organisation at the April meeting, 28 went to subcontractors certified as being disadvantaged, minority and women-owned business enterprises. Four more subcontractor contracts went to veteran-owned companies.

The organisation said that it had invested nearly US$6.7 billion since it began the Move Illinois program in 2012, and that more than US$1.9 billion had been committed to small, diverse and veteran-owned firms.