The plan to paint stripes, that would help enforce the speed limit on the I-74 Bridge, appears to have been abandoned.
IDOT crews were to begin painting the stripes on the bridge Tuesday, July 8, 2014. Police would use the stripes and a stopwatch to calculate the speed at which vehicles traveled from one stripe to another; and the stripes could be used to enforce the posted 50 miles-per-hour speed limit on the bridge.
State Police say it's no secret that not all drivers obey that speed limit on the bridge, but there's no shoulder or other safe place for a patrol car to park as part of enforcement there. The I-74 Bridge is considered a high-risk driving zone, and speeding can elevate that risk even further. There were also concerns about the expected heavier traffic on the bridge when the Centennial Bridge is temporarily closed for improvements.
The day the stripes were scheduled to be painted on the I-74 Bridge, though, no workers were seen on the bridge.
A spokesman for Illinois State Police said there appeared to have been "an executive decision somewhere" to not paint the speed enforcement stripes after all. The crew that was expected to do that job moved on to other re-striping along interstates 74 and 80.
"So, that is where we are (with) the striping efforts now," the spokesman said.