Construction has been completed on the first phase of the Kennedy Expressway renovation on the north side. Work began earlier this year in spring on the major renovation of a seven-mile stretch of the highway between W Ohio Street to the south and W Lawrence Avenue to the north. The work is being led by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and will span across three-years in total.
The Kennedy was built in 1960 and stretches a total of 18-miles from downtown to O’Hare International Airport. This makes it the busiest roadway in the Midwest with over 250,000 daily riders, with its last major renovation being in 1994. Work includes upgrades to its lighting, signage, bridges, pavements, and paints according to IDOT.
Construction plan of the Kennedy via IDOT
Phase One consisted of the inbound lanes, closing two-lanes at a time with the express lanes permanently running in this direction to offset the closures.
Phase Two will commence in the spring of 2024 and run through fall, focusing on the express lanes themselves and the rehab of its REVersible Lane And Control (REVLAC) System.
Phase Three will run through the same period of time in 2025, mirroring the first phase with work focusing on the outbound lanes while using the express lanes to offset traffic.
Current view of the Kennedy via IDOT
The overall project has a budget of $150 million, with over ten-miles of roadways not included in this renovation. To further offset the loss of capacity during the work both Metra and the CTA ran additional trains, though the Blue Line still saw lower frequencies from its peak and its increase came at the cost of other lines.
The lanes are expected to be fully open by Tuesday though small temporary closures will continue as equipment is removed.
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I find it so funny how even with decreased southbound capacity and the completion of the Jane Byrne interchange, every weekday there was still bumper to bumper traffic south of Kinzie street. Urban freeways are a stain on our city and I hope we someday get to see them removed
Completely agree. If we can encourage at least half of the city to not own cars just imagine how much better of a city we could build and how much better the experience of it would be!
All of this would be very good for tax revenue and for business.
I don’t see how you can convince half of the drivers to give up the car without improved infrastructures. More L lines, more modern and faster trains, more buses, and safety is another concern. Nobody wants to ride bikes during winter or to get stabbed on the train.
Agreed, so let’s concertedly push for all the better options for getting around. That takes shifting our public spending priorities which can be done if we all organize together and push for it. Like what Better Streets Chicago and Active Trans are doing.
If we want a better city, this must happen. The car status quo plays to our do-nothing and propensity to not care about resolving massive tragedy-of-the-commons situations like too many cars on “free” streets is.
yayyy….looks exactly the same. Hi Ian and Jack, do you have today’s countdown #21?
Hi Bobby, yes #21 is now live – we had a scheduling error. Sorry about that!
Thanks!
Don’t even see anything new. Already dated and aging. Regrind the underbridges, they simply changed the lightbulbs to LED and called it a day. The covered the rusty beams with plywood and moved on. Someone lining their pockets
Eh, not much you can do, it’s an ugly highway. 🤷
The budget is $150M, M I L L I O N, for all 3 sections. The wouldn’t cover the kickbacks on the ORD21 project. This was a payoff to someone’s cousin.