– The National Automobile Dealers Association has designated October as Booster Seat Safety Month and says many dealers in all 50 states will host child-seat safety events that include demonstrations of how to properly install the seats and fasten in the children. The NADA said while safety experts have identified proper booster-seat use for children in the 4- to 8-year-old age range as one of the nation’s most important child safety priorities, most of America’s 20 million children who should be riding in booster seats aren’t.
– Pace is running a free shuttle service through Oak Park. The vans run hourly on a looped route connecting points of interest from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week except holidays. Call 708-615-1830.
– The Wentworth Avenue Bridge at 65th Street over the Dan Ryan is closed for reconstruction until at least Nov. 24, when one lane will reopen. Both lanes of traffic on the Wentworth Avenue Bridge are scheduled to reopen Dec. 23. The detour Wentworth is: West on 65th Street to Stewart Avenue, north to 63rd Street, east to Wentworth Avenue.
– A downstate city and two southern Indiana cities are among three finalists to become the permanent home of LST-325, a landing ship tank from World War II. Peoria, Ill., and Jeffersonville and Evansville, Ind., hope to land the LST and use it as a floating museum piece. A decision on which city will get the craft is expected by September.
– General Motors is delivering the largest fleet of diesel-electric hybrid buses to Seattle’s King County. The county has received the first of a 235-bus order. The new buses will account for about 15 percent of King County Metro Transit’s 1,300-vehicle fleet and are expected to save roughly 750,000 gallons of fuel a year.
– Ford Motor Co. says it will close its Lorain (Ohio) Assembly Plant in late 2005, resulting in the loss of about 1,200 jobs. Production of the plant’s Econoline van will shift to the Ohio Assembly Plant in nearby Avon Lake by January 2006, Ford says. Production of the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner at the Avon Lake plant will be transferred to a Kansas City, Mo., plant in August 2005. Last year, Ford announced it would close the Lorain plant within four years but gave no timeline.
– Mazda is boosting production capacity by 30 percent for engines used in the Mazda3 and Mazda6 to meet demand for the cars in Japan, the U.S. and Europe.
