PEORIA, Ill. – An expansion and rebuild of some of the facilities of the Greater Peoria Mass Transit District is underway.
A new paint and body shop is officially open, so now CityLink is in the process of tearing down a bus garage built in 1978, and will begin building a $50 million new bus garage and transit headquarters.
(Greater Peoria Mass Transit District)
“We’ve got the oldest transit maintenance shop in the State of Illinois,” said Doug Roelfs, General Manager, CityLink. “There are hoists and lifts in there that can’t even raise the bus high enough now. So we’ve had to modify things and move things around.”
A large share of the money for the project came from the most recent “Rebuild Illinois” capital construction plan passed by the legislature.
And that has Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Omer Osman — a Peoria native — very happy.
“We are trying to be multi-modal — underline multi-modal. We are no longer highways and bridges,” said Osman. “Yes, a lot of our work is highways and bridges because that’s the asset we have. But the multi-modal nature of what we are trying to do — what we are trying to advance — is were ‘Rebuild Illinois’ kicks in.”
Osman, though, also cites work like the ongoing McCluggage Bridge reconstruction as being just as important to Peoria, and to
IDOT.
Construction on the CityLink facilities is expected to be done in eighteen months.
(Greater Peoria Mass Transit District)
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