With The Ryan under construction and I-294 about to get really messed up from ORD on north, it's clear that Chicago needs more highways.

If you ran IDOT and the Tollway Authority, what highway routings would you build in the Chicago area?

I'll start.

1) Extend I-355 to US 12 at the Wisconsin border and run it all the way around to I-65 near Lowell. That would provide a much better bypass around Chicago and also provide a nice connection to Peotone International if that white elephant ever gets built. I wouldn't mess with an east-west connection through Lake County to I-94 as has been proposed. If anything, upgrade IL 60 to something like Lake-Cook or Palatine Road, with limited access and grade separations.

2) Make the Elgin - O'Hare expressway connect Elgin and O'Hare. Extend the US 20 highway to I-90 at Hampshire.

3) Forget about the Prairie Parkway (the highway that will run north-south west of IL 47) unless the I-355 connector to I-65 gets built. The corridor is worth protecting, but that's going to be underutilized for a long time.

4) Add an HOV lane to I-55 from I-80 to Lake Shore Drive.

5) Add a lane in each direction to the Edens (ideally HOV). Upgrade US 41 to Interstate quality from the Tri State spur ramp to Wisconsin.

6) Consider the Mid-City Transitway parallel to Cicero in the city (truck-only lanes and enhanced rapid transit in a railroad corridor).

7) Make the Kennedy express lanes HOV lanes.

8) The O'Hare west bypass (the connector from I-90 to I-294) is an interesting concept, but it seems like it would run through some really dense industrial areas which makes me think that it will be serious $$$ to build for a nice benefit, but not a required benefit. You'd need the Elgin-O'Hare highway to exist to make it really worthwhile.

And a couple transit suggestions...

1) Increase Metra off-peak and reverse commute frequencies by utilizing smaller trains or leveraging existing equipment that sits idle from 9am to 4pm. I realize that this could be a significant money pit, but I also think the reason that so many people drive Downtown is that they don't want to be slaves to off peak (every hour or two) Metra schedules. We have a great commuter rail network to the city, but it pales in comparison to networks like London's.

2) Add a north - south Metra connector route along the IHB tracks. The STAR line is promising, but we need an inner route as well.

You clearly know a lot more about this than I, but my biggest wishes, as a far Southsider:

1. Whatever it takes, however much it costs, figure out some way that I-80 to/from Indiana and the Dan Ryan are not completely overrun with semi-trucks 24 hours a day, much of the time at 10 mph. Charge $3 tolls if you have to.

2. Run public transportation direct to O'Hare that doesn't take me all day to use. I've heard that there is supposed to be an express station put in at Block 37, with 20-minute service to ORD; don't know if that's true or not, sure hope so. At least I could get downtown on the Metra and walk a couple blocks to a fast train then. Also allegedly a Metra line from somewhere down here to ORD is in the works; I'll believe that the day I set foot on it.

3. Work on the damn roads 24 hours a day until they are fixed, overtime be damned. While you're at it, fire the "workers" who don't work.

Do they ever take into account the value of the time that people waste in traffic around here? Thousands of people at $25 an hour times years; adds up to real money.

1) Extend I-355 to US 12 at the Wisconsin border ...

2) Make the Elgin - O'Hare expressway connect Elgin and O'Hare.

And a couple transit suggestions...

1) Increase Metra off-peak and reverse commute frequencies by utilizing smaller trains or leveraging existing equipment that sits idle from 9am to 4pm. I realize that this could be a significant money pit, but I also think the reason that so many people drive Downtown is that they don't want to be slaves to off peak (every hour or two) Metra schedules. We have a great commuter rail network to the city, but it pales in comparison to networks like London's.

Hey p1cunnin, when are you running for gov or going to start a PAC to support those politicians that like these ideas. :)

The items above #1,2 and #1 are most important to me, roads/transportation that I would use frequently if done.

I fully agree with this comment from toomanybooks:
2. Run public transportation direct to O'Hare that doesn't take me all day to use.but seeing as I live a few miles north of ORD, I personally wouldn't use this transportation.


--

Do they ever take into account the value of the time that people waste in traffic around here? Thousands of people at $25 an hour times years; adds up to real money.
As a mattery fact ( :) ), yes they do, which is why IDOT's District 1 (Chicago area) has a pavement rehabilitation policy different from that of the rest of the state. When a major expressway in the Chicago area reaches the end of its life, it is reconstructed in concrete, with a slab thickness sufficient for at least 40 more years of service. (The recent Kennedy reconstruction has a 60-year design life). This is in contrast to the typical pavement rehabilitation practice in the rest of the state: patching and overlaying with asphalt, which lasts about ten years.

The reconstruction approach takes longer initially but avoids future frequent lane closures for a long time. In the long run, the total user costs (delay, fuel consumption, vehicle wear and tear, pollution, work zone accidents, etc.) are lower.

(And yes, in case you're wondering, I am a geek.)

2) Make the Elgin - O'Hare expressway connect Elgin and O'Hare. Extend the US 20 highway to I-90 at Hampshire.Extending it to O'Hare is a no-brainer. Just take Thorndale and turn it into the highway, then throw in a west entrance to ORD. (that will cut 10 minutes off my drive time to ORD).

But extend it to Elgin? How? Widen Stearns? There is Denny Hasterts Stearns Rd. bridge pork project, a new bridge over the Fox, but I don't see how the state can come up with their share of the funding. They've been talking and surveying for over 12 years, and still saying it's all set to go.

But that leaves you 7 or 8 miles south of Elgin.

Or would you widen Lake St. (U.S. 20) once again; they just did a big widening on that, but no where near enough; I think they've finished that. Turning Lake into a hwy will kill all the businesses along there. After just going though a long road construction project, locals will not be happy about another one.

You clearly know a lot more about this than I, but my biggest wishes, as a far Southsider:


3. Work on the damn roads 24 hours a day until they are fixed, overtime be damned. While you're at it, fire the "workers" who don't work.

Do they ever take into account the value of the time that people waste in traffic around here? Thousands of people at $25 an hour times years; adds up to real money.

AMEN!!! Major sports venues can be built in 18-24 months, but highway projects take years to complete. IMHO, highway projects are giant pork barrel goodies for contractors and construction workers. In addition to the time wasted because of traffic jams caused by interminable construction, the idiots at IDOT and other state transportation agencies should consider the fuel that is wasted and pollution spewing from vehicles that are stuck in traffic.

(1) I still don't know why there isn't an on/off ramp at I-57 and 294.

(2) Figure out some way so the same artery that connects the city with ORD does not connect the oh-so-congested Schaumburg area.

(3) Doesn't affect me, but getting from Evanston to anywhere is a pain.

=1) Extend I-355...all the way around to I-65 near Lowell.

You've got my vote for governor. Is it too late for a write-in campaign?

(3) Doesn't affect me, but getting from Evanston to anywhere is a pain.
Possibly convert Oakton to a Rt 83 type arterial with limited access options?

I'd like to build a very long bridge extenstion of I-94 from the South Side to New Buffalo, MI, bypass the whole Gary thing, and live the rest of my life off of the toll proceeds!

Steve

Connect the CTA line that ends at O'Hare with the end of the lines that end at Oak Park/Forest Park. Add a couple stops along the way. Every time I take a cab from OP to ORD I'm in a steady line of cabs, all going the same direction. I'd gladly take the CTA if I didn't have to go all the way through the loop and then back out.

As somebody who works in the transportation planning industry, I'll just say that some of the above ideas are good ones, and some of them are flights of fancy. And that the Federal guidelines for impact statements and the like can cause a project to take forever, even if almost everybody thinks its a good idea.

I'd like to build a very long bridge extenstion of I-94 from the South Side to New Buffalo, MI, bypass the whole Gary thing, and live the rest of my life off of the toll proceeds!

Steve

Not a bad idea, maybe I'd visit my parents more at their lake home.

The thing that discourages me now -- driving through Indiana. It's like they issue driver's licenses to the deaf and blind.

2. Run public transportation direct to O'Hare that doesn't take me all day to use. I've heard that there is supposed to be an express station put in at Block 37, with 20-minute service to ORD; don't know if that's true or not, sure hope so. At least I could get downtown on the Metra and walk a couple blocks to a fast train then. Also allegedly a Metra line from somewhere down here to ORD is in the works; I'll believe that the day I set foot on it.


I've been put under the impression that this is in fact in progress - no idea on any sort of ETA.

I appreciate the votes for governor, but I try to be an honest man ;)

I thought the I-57 / I-294 interchange was supposed to happen. I haven't been down that way in years because of all the construction at that end of the world.

The CTA link from ORD to Oak Park is an interesting idea. The thing of it is, there is a relatively lightly used railroad right of way that would do the trick. The railroad right of way that runs right by the Des Plaines Ave. / Forest Park CTA station, goes through River Forest, past Maywood Park, ends up on the Metra North Central line at O'Hare. Undoubtedly it would cost billions (although I would hope that Metra could do something along the lines of a lighter rail link), but you could run trains that would effectively connect two ends of the Blue line. Figure stops at (Northbound):

Forest Park CTA (Blue Line)
River Forest (Metra CNW West) There's potential that they could run the Green Line a little bit further and connect here -- which would provide yet another CTA route to ORD
Chicago Ave.
North Ave. / Maywood Park (park and ride)
Grand Ave.
Franklin Park Belmont Ave. (Metra NC) (if they could have an easy connection to the Milwaukee Road West Line, that would be great)
Schiller Park (Metra NC)
Rosemont Balmoral Ave (Metra NC)
O'Hare (CTA)
or
O'Hare Transfer (Metra NC)

Done correctly, this would provide two alternate CTA routes to O'Hare from Downtown, enable better Metra-ORD connections from the Milwaukee West and CNW West lines, and provide a better North-South rapid transit system away from the city. Not perfect, but one way with small negative impact.

The challenge here is the type of train that you could run. Heavy rail (traditional Metra) is ultra expensive (in terms of rolling stock), but is the only way you can run if there are freight trains on the route. Light rail is cheaper (and you can run more frequency), but you can't mix with freight trains. Rapid transit trains (CTA) would enable a true Blue (and Green) line connector, but would require a dedicated right of way, and an interesting connection from the existing rail grade onto the existing Blue Line -- not impossible, but tricky because of the limited CTA right of way in the center of I-190 at Mannheim.

The challenge of an O'Hare express CTA train from Block 37 is the limited right of way as well. I'm not sure how they can promise that with very few passing sidings along the way. They'd be better off with a Heathrow Express sort of service along the Metra NC line, but I'm not certain that the CN railroad wants to see many more trains.

The Elgin end of the Elgin-O'Hare is pretty well in place with dedicated right of way. If you're flying in to ORD 9R and you look down at the west end of the highway, you can see the right of way that runs through that part of Hanover Park. I always figured that it would swing through that right of way, cross Ill 59 south of Villa Olivia, and then connect to US 20 at the interchange west of the EJE tracks. Then all you have to do is make US 20 an expressway from Randall Road on west to I-90. I suspect that our friends at the Toll Highway Authority may be blocking that.

With regard to the comments about road construction projects in general (in terms of how long they take), I agree. I'm certain that if you put enough people and equipment on the job, you could be pouring concrete at a pace of a couple miles a day and many of these reconstruction projects could be done relatively quickly. New construction (with right of way clearance, bridges, and so forth) is another matter, but once you have the prep done, you could roll out cement in a hurry. There are reasons to slow these things down. One is cost and cash flow for government. They want to do as many projects as possible simultaneously to keep the construction companies in business and show people that things are happening. I'm certain that a concerted effort could get the Dan Ryan rebuilt in a matter of a couple months, but all of IDOT's resources would have to go there.

Thanks for all the responses -- keep them coming. Maybe somebody who can do something about transportation might read this.

(From the LHR RCC, waiting for UA 959 -- the flight, not the FTer.)

As a mattery fact ( :) ), yes they do, which is why IDOT's District 1 (Chicago area) has a pavement rehabilitation policy different from that of the rest of the state. When a major expressway in the Chicago area reaches the end of its life, it is reconstructed in concrete, with a slab thickness sufficient for at least 40 more years of service. (The recent Kennedy reconstruction has a 60-year design life). This is in contrast to the typical pavement rehabilitation practice in the rest of the state: patching and overlaying with asphalt, which lasts about ten years.

The reconstruction approach takes longer initially but avoids future frequent lane closures for a long time. In the long run, the total user costs (delay, fuel consumption, vehicle wear and tear, pollution, work zone accidents, etc.) are lower.

(And yes, in case you're wondering, I am a geek.)


So the reconstructions that we see ALL THE TIME and ALL OVER THE PLACE won't have to be redone for 40-60 years? All the road construction companies will disband and all the IL politicians won't have billions to give their friends? Are you seriously telling me that?

My little boy will be a grandfather before he has to go through road construction hell?

I think not.

Forest Park CTA (Blue Line)
River Forest (Metra CNW West) There's potential that they could run the Green Line a little bit further and connect here -- which would provide yet another CTA route to ORD
Chicago Ave.
North Ave. / Maywood Park (park and ride)
Grand Ave.
Franklin Park Belmont Ave. (Metra NC) (if they could have an easy connection to the Milwaukee Road West Line, that would be great)
Schiller Park (Metra NC)
Rosemont Balmoral Ave (Metra NC)
O'Hare (CTA)
or
O'Hare Transfer (Metra NC)


You have the right idea, but I think this is way too many stops - the poor little train would never get up a head of steam and the trip would take longer than driving. I would certainly vote the the ORD stop being the CTA station, it takes FOREVER to get from the metra stop to ORD under the best of circumstances.

Ok, so delete the chicago Ave. and Grand Ave. stops... :p

On a related note, looks like this thread is generating interest out there (uh huh).

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0604150201apr15,1,1593276.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed

I'm not a Chi-town metro person, but I'll throw in my two cents.

Abolish the tollway system. Just think where the $5 Billion that was spent to "upgrade" to open-road tolling could have gone. It costs a little more than $1 million per mile to build (not resurface) a two lane road. That comes out to a little less than 5,000 miles of roads that could have been resurfaced/constructed. Alas, since such a huge chunk of cash was spent on the open-road toll program, the Illinois Tollway is here to stay. :(

Create an interstate road connecting I-90 in Rockford to Dubuque. They're going to waste cash expanding U.S. 20 to a 4-lane road to Dubuque, but who wants to stop every few miles or so?

Oh yeah...and CREATE AN I-90 WEST ON RAMP AT RT.47 IN HUNTLEY!!
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THAT?!?!??

Seriously, there's an I-90 on-ramp eastbound towards Chicago.

(There...I feel better now).

Abolish the tollway system. Just think where the $5 Billion that was spent to "upgrade" to open-road tolling could have gone.

If I had a nickel for every person who ever wrote that line... The problem with abolishing the Tollway Authority is that the money still has to come from some place to upgrade those roads. Illinois already has an incredibly high set of gas taxes and turning toll roads into freeways would mean an additional increase in either the gas tax or the license plate fees. And, there would be a further dilution of federal money that goes for road building.

As for the "$5 Billion" for ORT, um, fact checker please. The $5.3 Billion is being used for more than ORT -- it includes ORT, but also a pretty comprehensive rebuilding and widening of just about all of the lane miles of the system, plus the I-355 extension.

If you look around the country, I would tend to guess that metro areas in need of more roads are tending to use tollways as a means to the end. And generally, privately operated tollways. Look at Houston with the Hardy Toll Road and the Sam Houston, Orlando with the toll roads all over the place, Dallas with a couple, California, etc. Toll roads are likely to increase, if anything, and privatization is one compelling approach for many governments -- as well as selling off the infrastructure (like the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road). So yes, while we (ok, our parents in some cases) were promised freeways "once the bonds were paid off", it's clear that toll roads are here to stay and as long as they are used as vehicles to extend and expand highways for cash-strapped states, the bonds will never be paid off.

(And no, I don't work for the ISTHA.)

Create an interstate road connecting I-90 in Rockford to Dubuque. They're going to waste cash expanding U.S. 20 to a 4-lane road to Dubuque, but who wants to stop every few miles or so?

I guess I would challenge the need for the "Galena Interstate". Traffic doesn't warrant a full Interstate highway. The divided highway being built improves safety and travel times and bypasses congested city centers. A divided highway also lessens the need for additional lane miles of frontage roads and the environmental impact of additional right of way. For the traffic load, that is a major improvement over what was a fairly nasty road. About all an Interstate quality road would do is give truckers an alternative to I-80 or I-90, I suppose, but unless there is a compelling need for a road from Chicago to Sioux City, I just don't see it. Iowa is slowly upgrading US 20 to four lanes, with some Interstate-quality miles (although many of those are a single lane in each direction), so there will eventually be a freeway across Iowa in the US 20 corridor.

Oh yeah...and CREATE AN I-90 WEST ON RAMP AT RT.47 IN HUNTLEY!!
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THAT?!?!??

Ok, that's a good one. I would imagine, with the outlet mall right there, that somebody has that one in the works. It did take forever to get a full interchange at Randall Road.

Keep in mind, when I-90 was built, Ill. 47 was the middle of nowhere and folks were going from Woodstock and Huntley to Chicago -- if they wanted to go West, they'd scoot over to the real interchange at US 20. Now Ill. 47 is something of the outer limit of suburbia and people do want to exit eastbound or enter westbound.


(There...I feel better now).

Good. That's the idea.

Well, I don't drive, so I wouldn't build any highways -- they encourage more driving and more sprawl, and besides, I'd literally never *see* the benefit. Crosstown rapid bus enhancements with signal priority, the Clinton Street subway, and some sort of downtown circulator system (busways, streetcars, etc.) make sense to me.

I have my doubts about Blue Line Airport Express -- maybe it's just because I live in Wicker Park, where the "L" tracks are tightly bound, but it seems to me that the Milwaukee Road tracks would be the obvious place to add express service. There's plenty of right-of-way out there.

p1c, I'd never noticed that freight alignment there. I'll look at the long range plans (not that they really mean anything -- plenty of worthy projects have languished on those for decades, perhaps centuries) to see if anyone's thought of that. The DMU "regional rail" technology that Metra's proposing for the STAR line makes closer station spacing possible: instead of a powerful locomotive pulling coaches, with high capacity and potential speed but slow accel/decel, DMUs have smaller engines built into the coaches. Miami has just placed some into service on Tri-Rail.

Several transit ideas have emerged for north-south travel in the western suburbs, including using the Chicago Belt railway (running about a mile east of Lincoln/Mannheim/La Grange Rd) and a bus network along I-90-294-88. These, plus the Cicero/Mid-City corridor, could easily link O'Hare and Midway.

Since I don't know anything about the western suburbs, though -- not driving has a way of keeping me inside the city -- I wouldn't know which corridors make the most sense from a land-use perspective. I do know that Cicero/Mid-City doesn't make as much sense as a transit corridor as it might seem, since the adjacent land uses are heavily industrial and not very transit supportive.

Also, you're right about the trend headed towards, not away from, toll roads. Sure, government can be crooked, but honestly this stuff costs more than most people think: a lane-mile of road really costs more like $7 million (plus land, the real kicker) than $0.5 million.

Toomanybooks: "Do they ever take into account the value of the time that people waste in traffic around here? Thousands of people at $25 an hour times years; adds up to real money."

Texas A&M does an annual "Urban Mobility Study" of traffic congestion in metros nationwide that does exactly that: measure lost productivity due to congestion. It's at http://mobility.tamu.edu.

(this is not quite what I do for a living, as that'd be a conflict of interest, but it's close)
.pc

I have my doubts about Blue Line Airport Express -- maybe it's just because I live in Wicker Park, where the "L" tracks are tightly bound, but it seems to me that the Milwaukee Road tracks would be the obvious place to add express service. There's plenty of right-of-way out there.

Several transit ideas have emerged for north-south travel in the western suburbs, including using the Chicago Belt railway (running about a mile east of Lincoln/Mannheim/La Grange Rd) and a bus network along I-90-294-88. These, plus the Cicero/Mid-City corridor, could easily link O'Hare and Midway.

Toomanybooks: "Do they ever take into account the value of the time that people waste in traffic around here? Thousands of people at $25 an hour times years; adds up to real money."

Texas A&M does an annual "Urban Mobility Study" of traffic congestion in metros nationwide that does exactly that: measure lost productivity due to congestion. It's at http://mobility.tamu.edu.



Thanks for you comments. I am no traffic engineer, but SOMETHING from downtown to O'Hare so that all those cars and cabs and limos and busses aren't stuck on I-90/94 for hours and hours must make sense, somehow, some way. $50 bucks each way, or whatever it is for cab/limo service, is insane.

How many millions of people waste how many millions of man-hours and gasoline and create how much pollution getting to and from ORD? It's staggering.