iBi - April 2009

Upon his retirement from Congress in 2008, Ray LaHood was appointed by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Department of Transportation. iBi spoke with Secretary LaHood on February 21st, 2009, several days prior to the president’s address to a joint session of Congress.

In an age of interstate highways, commercial airline travel and the private automobile, rail freight is, with limited exception, the reason for the survival of the nation’s rail system. Of course, it more than survives—it prospers. Not a single major railroad has entered bankruptcy court in two decades.

iBi spoke with Firefly Co-Founder and Senior Vice President Mil Ovan on February 20, 2009. Ovan was in Washington D.C. to discuss the recently passed stimulus package with legislators on Capitol Hill.

With about 30,000 vehicles passing daily over the Illinois Waterway via five bridges in the Peoria-Pekin area, one might think that the ongoing movement of river barges would be etched on our collective regional consciousness.