Expressway Traffic Nightmare: Here Are The Closures
By Kate Shepherd in News on Aug 19, 2015 7:17PM
The dreaded construction season traffic is about to get even worse when several lanes of the Dan Ryan, Kennedy and Eisenhower expressways close for an overhaul of the Jane Byrne Interchange.
Most of the construction is scheduled for weekends, which were chosen by Illinois Department of Transportation and the City of Chicago to minimize the impact on festivals and special events, according to IDOT. The scheduled closures are also dependent on the weather.
The benefit of the inconvenience will be a new flyover bridge to connect the inbound Dan Ryan (westbound Interstate 90/94) to the outbound Eisenhower (westbound Interstate 290).
The first closure starts at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday when the inbound Kennedy Expressway ramp to inbound Congress Parkway shuts down until the morning of Aug. 31.
Installing the beams for the new flyover bridge will cause four weekends of lane closures: Aug. 21 to 23, Aug. 28 to 30, Sept. 25 to 27 and October 16 to18. Both directions of Congress Parkway at the Byrne Interchange will be closed during the two August weekend closures but the I-90/I-94 ramps will still be accessible. The Kennedy and Dan Ryan will be reduced to one lane between Saturday night and Sunday morning during the closures.
There will be overnight ramp closures on Thursday and Friday in order to remove the beams on the old Halsted Street bridge over the Eisenhower. From 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday, the inbound Eisenhower ramp to the outbound Dan Ryan will be closed and there will be short intermittent stops on the ramp from the inbound Eisenhower to the outbound Kennedy. On Friday the inbound Kennedy ramp to the outbound Eisenhower will be closed from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.