States across the nation, including Illinois, are grappling with ways to regulate the use of electric scooters, a mode of transportation that is gaining popularity and has become one of the most talked about real-world technology experiments since the introduction of ride-hailing services like Uber.

The Washington Post reports that nearly 70 bills related to e-scooters have been introduced in 29 state legislatures in recent months. Most of these bills seek to regulate scooter speed, age of operators, where they can be operated and parked, and clear definitions of what an electric scooter is.

When high-speed rail finally takes off in Illinois, Peorians will watch from the sidelines.

The last time a passenger train served Peoria, Ronald Reagan was in the White House and “Dallas” was the most popular TV show of the day. A shaky one-year experiment with Amtrak, providing service to Chicago on a line called the Prairie Marksman, ended in 1981. Since then, area residents must travel to Normal or Galesburg for the nearest passenger train.

It’s still a year away, but the two Decatur public Montessori programs at Garfield and Enterprise schools are gearing up to join forces and relocate into the Thomas Jefferson Middle School building on East Cantrell Street.

Combining the Montessori programs and moving them to Thomas Jefferson is phase II in the district’s strategic plan to reconfigure district buildings, closing some and consolidating others to best use available space. Over several years, the wide-ranging, $55 million project will reduce the number of district school buildings from 22 to 17, add air conditioning at all buildings and increase the capacity for some of the most popular programs.