More traffic, fewer lanes open, limited choices for alternative routes.
Those are the key differences between the Dan Ryan Expressway reconstruction, which starts Friday, and all other major highway projects that have come before it in the Chicago area.
The largest road rehabilitation project in the city’s history will affect the lives and livelihoods of more than 2.7 million drivers who travel the network of expressways and toll roads each day in northeastern Illinois–not only the 320,000 motorists using the Ryan.
Think of it this way: The number of drivers affected is roughly equivalent to every man, woman and child living in Chicago–the third-largest U.S. city, which also ranks No. 3 for traffic congestion.
The two-year project will be felt by thousands of additional people and businesses. Neighborhoods will grapple with more traffic and construction-related noise. Some truckers might bypass the area–a decision that could lead to increased prices for everything from groceries to washing machines. And businesses in neighboring states could suffer, too, from gridlock stemming from the nation’s transportation hub.
Exactly how bad it will be, officials just don’t know.
“People ask, ‘Will rush hour be one, two, three hours longer?’ ” said Jacek Tyszkiewicz, project implementation engineer at the Illinois Department of Transportation. “It is awful tough to tell. We expect it will take several weeks to a month to shake out.”
There’s no precedent to guide them: Engineers have never tried to reconstruct a highway while it continues to carry record numbers of vehicles on so few lanes.
A high number of accidents and chronic congestion–the Ryan carries twice the traffic it was designed to carry when its first leg opened in 1961–demand that the highway be modernized. Engineers say the Ryan won’t need another major reconstruction for 40 years.
Adding to the plan, the $600 million Ryan project will be done simultaneously with several other major highway projects in the Chicago area’s Southland Corridor. Sections of every interstate highway south of the Eisenhower Expressway will be ripped up this year.
Reconstruction is continuing on the Kingery Expressway (I-80/94), the Bishop Ford Freeway (I-94), Illinois Highway 394, the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294), 11 bridges on the Chicago Skyway and the Borman Expressway (I-80/94) in Indiana.
Officials say they made a deliberate decision to inconvenience motorists mightily over a shorter period instead of doing the roadwork consecutively.
“These next two years are not going to be so good,” said Diane O’Keefe, chief highway engineer for the Chicago region at IDOT. “But it will be better than stretching it out three or four years.”
There are no easy alternatives, for commuters or truckers. Suggested alternative routes, such as Stony Island Avenue, are already brutal.
“At 95th Street, road hogs [on Stony Island] use the right-hand lanes to cut ahead of the law-abiding suckers who wait lined up in the two left lanes,” lamented Kristofer Thomsen, who uses Stony Island when going to Hyde Park from his home in Pullman.
The track record of previous major highway reconstruction projects in the Chicago area offers scant encouragement about avoiding congestion during the Ryan overhaul. Those projects showed there is no way to avoid longer travel times–no matter if commuters drive their same routes, take alternative streets, ride mass transit or carpool, according to earlier analysis by the Chicago Area Transportation Study.
Transit officials said they didn’t see a surge in riders during previous highway projects. Those trends, coupled with current extra-seat capacity on the CTA and Metra rail lines, have transit officials expressing confidence that they can handle additional riders if demand rises.
“It just defies logic,” Metra chairman Jeffrey Ladd said. “When they did the Edens, our ridership increase was minimal. I don’t know where these people go.”
But Metra executive director Philip Pagano cautioned, “The Dan Ryan may be different.”
IDOT chief of staff Clayton Harris III said he is counting on as many as 150,000 of the 272,000 car drivers who use the Ryan each day to find alternative routes so there is enough room for the 48,000 trucks that use the expressway daily. But other IDOT officials are not as optimistic.
Tyszkiewicz said it is unrealistic to expect that anywhere close to 150,000 car drivers will abandon the Ryan. “It would be really great because the rush hours would be closer to normal, but it’s wishful thinking,” he said. “We can hope for 15 to 20 percent based on past projects.”
STATE: CREWS READY FOR EMERGENCIES DURING REHAB
What are the state’s “road doctors” prescribing for their families, before surgery begins on the highway with the most deaths and injuries in the Chicago region?
Several top state transportation officials who are responsible for the planning and logistics of the Dan Ryan Expressway rehab say they have told their spouses and children to steer clear of the highway for the next two years.
For drivers who must travel on the Ryan, the most important advice is to stay inside the vehicle if it becomes disabled or involved in a crash, said Ray Frias, manager of the Illinois Department of Transportation’s emergency traffic patrol facility at 35th Street and Normal Avenue near the Ryan.
“Dial ‘star 999’ on your cell phone, and we will be there in minutes,” Frias said. “We don’t want people exiting their vehicles under any circumstances, unless it is dangerous to stay in the vehicle.”
If a vehicle has a flat tire or has been involved in an accident but can still be driven, drivers should try to limp it off the closest exit ramp, officials said. No emergency shoulders will exist on portions of the Ryan undergoing lane reductions.
Hundreds of hours have gone into planning emergency management responses to scenarios ranging from SUV rollovers to hazardous materials spills, according to state officials.
Authorities are prepared to reverse the traffic flow on Dan Ryan entrance and exit ramps to get rescue vehicles to accident scenes quickly or to use temporary ramps built for construction equipment, said Jacek Tyszkiewicz, project implementation engineer at the Transportation Department.
Traffic would be stopped behind the accident, and traffic ahead of the accident would continue to move until a path is cleared for emergency vehicles, officials said.
“We’ve conducted dry runs involving every firehouse and every police precinct to make sure there is access to provide emergency services,” Tyszkiewicz said. “We’ve worked with the construction contractor to move heaven, earth and walls if the need arises.
“But my advice to everybody is still to stay off the Ryan if you possibly can.”
–Tribune
IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDE BETTER ROADS, MORE LANES
The $600 million reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway–the Chicago area’s busiest and most accident-plagued highway–will begin Friday.
Traffic will be reduced to two to three lanes in each direction from 13th Street to the I-57 interchange through fall this year. Express lanes will be closed in both directions from 31st to 71st Streets until mid-September, when IDOT hopes to open one express lane. The remaining express lanes are scheduled to open before winter.
Until then, all Ryan traffic will be funneled into local lanes, resulting in about 50 percent less pavement. Shoulders have been eliminated in construction zones.
During the second phase of the project, from March 2007 through late next year, traffic will be reduced to three or four lanes in each direction from 15th Street to the I-57 interchange.
The local lanes will be closed from 31st to 71st Streets.
When the dust settles in late 2007, a safer and more dependable Ryan will emerge, IDOT design engineers said.
Drivers will enjoy pothole-free travel from downtown to 95th Street for perhaps the first time since shortly after the expressway opened in 1961. The Ryan, already one of the widest highways in the world with a total of 14 lanes, will get an additional lane in each direction for much of its route south of 47th Street.
Four local access ramps are being eliminated to help reduce congestion and collisions. An average of seven serious accidents occur on the Ryan each day. New storm sewers also are being built to ease chronic flooding problems.
The Ryan’s interchange with the Chicago Skyway will be reconfigured, and upgrades will be made to local access roads that run parallel to the expressway.
–Tribune
– – –
320,000
Estimated number of vehicles that travel the Dan Ryan daily.
256,000
Estimated number of vehicles that will continue to use the Day Ryan daily after lanes are closed in the first phase of renovation.
– – –
Ryan rip-up to affect most of Chicago area
The Dan Ryan is the area’s busiest road, averaging 320,000 drivers daily. The renovation will cut the Ryan’s capacity in half, but IDOT estimates that four out of five drivers will continue to use it.
Shades of red indicate areas most likely to be affected.
Even if you don’t drive the Ryan . . .
— Traffic backups: Nearly every Chicago-area highway is connected directly or indirectly to the Ryan. Traffic will back up from the points where the highways merge.
— Diverting drivers: Tens of thousands of Ryan users will seek new routes on other highways and local roads.
— Trains/buses: Ridership on public transportation could increase.
The alternatives
Some alternatives to bypass the Dan Ryan expressway during construction:
Carpooling
www.sharethedrive.org
The Chicago Area Transportation Study’s Share the Drive program teams up people who live and work in the same areas.
Vanpooling
www.pacebus.com
Pace’s program provides a van to people who work and live in the same areas. A designated driver is responsible for maintaining a mileage log and for vehicle maintenance. The other riders in the group pay a monthly fee.
CTA trains
www.transitchicago.com
Red Line
Weekday schedule: Runs 24 hours
Green Line
Weekday schedule: 3:50 a.m. to 1:25 a.m.
Park & Ride lots:
Orange Line
Weekday schedule: 3:55 a.m. to 1:19 a.m.
Park & Ride lot:
Other trains
www.metrarail.com, www.nictd.com
METRA ROCK ISLAND DISTRICT LINE
Downtown to Joliet
METRA ELECTRIC LINE
Downtown to University Park
SOUTH SHORE LINE
Downtown to South Bend, Ind.
Sources: Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago Transit Authority, METRa, PACE, ESRI.
Tribune graphics
— See microfilm for complete graphic.