If this road construction season seems particularly troublesome, particularly irksome, particularly exasperating, maybe it`s because it is-especially if you live north.
There`s work on North Western Avenue, on the Kennedy Expressway, on Lake Shore Drive and, most recently, on the Michigan Avenue bridge downtown. And that`s only a partial list of road projects vexing people who travel through Chicago`s North Side.
Regionwide, however, the number of road repair rehabs in the Chicago area this year is roughly equal to 1990`s total, highway officials say.
And they suggest that motorists from the north and northwest areas of the city and suburbs may think they are seeing a lot more projects when, in fact, they`re just witnessing more visible ones than usual.
Of course, ”visible” is the nice word for big projects that affect a bunch of people.
”I think that what you are seeing this year is a lot more high-profile work-Lake Shore Drive and the Kennedy,” said Dale Janik, chief of statewide program planning for the Illinois Department of Transportation.
But, there also is ”some major . . . rehabilitation going on elsewhere,” he said.
To the south, for example, lane closures are in effect on the Calumet Expressway between 130th Street and Dolton Avenue. To the west, Roosevelt Road is under construction from West Street to Nicoll Way.
But the fact that others also are being inconvenienced in this season of discontent is of little comfort to the beleaguered commuters trying to motor toward the Loop from the north.
For Jay Niefeld of Glencoe, Monday`s drive to work downtown took ”at least 40 minutes longer” than usual.
David Bledsoe, who drives downtown from his Dundee-area home, said he`s thinking about moving someplace where he can catch a train. ”It`s been taking me consistently longer than usual, about a half-hour longer,” he said.
”I`m accustomed to getting to work in 20 minutes, and it`s taking 45 minutes to an hour sometimes,” said Josephine Grant, a North Side resident who uses CTA buses to get downtown. ”Everywhere you look, there`s
construction.”
Adding to commuter discomfort levels on Monday was record heat, turning a spring day into a summerlike scorcher.
The mercury hit 89 degrees at 3:47 p.m., tying the all-time high set in 1956.
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”The buses are a little hot,” said Tom Burrell of Prospect Heights. ”I think the heater was on in mine.”
The Kennedy is being prepared for a huge, three-year project that is scheduled to get under way in earnest next year, promising some real traffic nightmares. Plans call for a total reconstruction of the expressway, from its junction with the Edens all the way to Ohio Street.
But just the preparatory work is enough to cause problems now.
Shoulders on the Kennedy are being upgraded this season to prepare them to handle traffic that will be diverted from other lanes that are to be ripped up and reconstructed beginning in 1992.
Though lane closures are in effect now only at night and on weekends, the mere presence of workers on the expressway during the day can cause gapers`
blocks and traffic slowdowns.
And restriping, one part of the preparatory work, has reduced the width of lanes, and thus the comfort zone, between automotive brethren on the Kennedy.
Meanwhile, a host of improvements to neighboring North Side arterial streets are already under way or planned for this summer, so those
thoroughfares can better handle Kennedy refugees next year.
For example, resurfacing is in the works for Cicero Avenue between Devon and Lawrence, and for Lincoln Avenue between Devon and Peterson.
Projects to increase truck clearances on Elston at Chestnut and at Kimberly are but two more ”off-system” improvements linked to the Kennedy job.
But the biggest Kennedy offshoot is the Lake Shore Drive project. Lake Shore is undergoing resurfacing-and lane closures-from Hollywood to Grand, as well as from Monroe to 31st Street.
Then there are the North Side projects that have nothing to do with the Kennedy project. Western Avenue, for example, is being resurfaced from Irving Park to Devon.
And the Michigan Avenue bridge and viaduct repair project promises a two- year-long bottleneck on Michigan between Ohio and Wacker.
Lower Michigan became one-way southbound between Wacker and Grand on Monday as traffic flows on several neighboring streets also were rejiggered to accommodate the project.
Lane closures on Upper Michigan, originally announced as beginning on Monday, will actually start after Tuesday`s morning rush hour, according to a project superintendent who said the announcement was incorrect.
”It`s always bad,” Harlan Hogan said of the drive in from suburban Riverwoods. ”The only thing that seems strange to me is that we have traffic for no particular reason. More gapers, I guess.”
Simon Marza, a Near North Side parking lot attendant, said he often hears the gripes of people vexed by road repairs.
”Everybody complains,” he said. ”This construction is blowing everything.”
IDOT`s Janik said that about 190 projects funded by state and federal money are planned in the metropolitan area this year. That is roughly the same as last year`s 198, but up considerably from 1989`s 165.
A six-cent-a-gallon increase in the state gasoline tax a few years ago has permitted the increased work, Janik said.