Archive for the ‘Interstates’ Category

Jackson Blvd Viaduct Re-opened

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

The Jackson Boulevard (eastbound Route 66) viaduct over the Union Station Railroad tracks in Chicago re-opened to traffic last week. It had been closed since June 2009. The old failing structure was demolished and completely replaced.

I posted up about the closure last year. The viaduct is located between Canal Street and the Jackson Bridge over the Chicago River. The closure had required detours, but did give pedestrians a rare 10-month chance to walk in the middle of the bridge without getting run over by traffic.

There are now no detours along Historic 66 in Cook County that I am aware of. In fact, portions of the highway alignment are being used for traffic detoured off the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290). Major repair work is in progress on the Congress Parkway bridges over the river as well as along the entire length of the expressway. Commuters have been advised to find alternate routes, and Jackson Boulevard, Ogden Avenue, and Adams Street have all been marked as I-290 detours.

Old Route 66 come to the rescue again!

Posted in Chicago, Highway Links, Illinois, Interstates, US | No Comments »

Hopes for new high-speed rail

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Here is an interesting article from Eugene Kane of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Future is now for high-speed rail – JSOnline

Don’t forget our relationship with the giant metropolis to the south, the City of Big Shoulders. Most cities would die for the chance to connect with Chicago on a regular basis, but in Milwaukee you’re at the mercy of an abbreviated train schedule or a two-hour drive that was exacerbated last summer due to confounding I-94 construction.

Bottom line, there’s got to be a better way.

The potential for the current stimulus package from the federal government to be the seed money for high-speed rail lines connecting Milwaukee to Chicago is well-discussed here. I will be writing more on this subject–important as we finally understand how wrong-headed we were to dismantle most of our surface rail passenger transportation network in the second half of the 20th century. This subject is dealt with in detail in my PowerPoint presentation, No Little Plans: The Roads of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago.

Posted in Interstates, Railroad Links, Wisconsin | No Comments »

Worst Traffic Bottleneck in Chicago

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

This should come as no surprise to most people who have driven on Chicago’s so-called “expressways:”

Current Trucking Industry News: TruckingInfo.com : Your Source for Trucking News and Information

A new analysis of 30 freight bottlenecks assesses the severity of 30 freight bottlenecks within the U.S. interstate system, using unique analysis methods and data to produce a severity ranking for each location.

This research by the American Transportation Research Institute dovetails with the ongoing Freight Performance Measures initiative sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and managed by ATRI.

The ATRI analysis of 30 national bottlenecks prioritizes chokepoints on the highway system previously identified by the research community. ATRI researchers used GIS/GPS technology and truck-specific information, as well as sophisticated analysis techniques, to determine what time of day freight was affected by traffic congestion and where the results of such congestion were the most severe.

According to the ATRI analysis, using a “total freight congestion value,” the biggest bottleneck on the list is the I-80 @ I-94 split in Chicago, which was fifth on the original list. The second worst was the I-95 @ SR-4 intersection in Bergen, N.J. Third was the I-90 @ I-94 Interchange (Edens Interchange), Chicago.

One of the reasons for the I-90/I-94 bottleneck being so bad is that there is no way for trucks to go from eastbound 94 to westbound 90, or vice-versa.

Posted in Interstates, Trucking | No Comments »