Construction of new Jane Byrne Interchange flyover bridge to begin March 7. Lane closure info: https://t.co/6FHvDzjThW pic.twitter.com/7OPaS1cNRH
— IDOT (@IDOT_Illinois) February 17, 2015
A $475 million upgrade to the link between the northbound I-90/94 Dan Ryan Expressway and the I-290 Eisenhower Expressway westbound in Chicago gets under way March 7, announced the Illinois Department of Transportation. According to IDOT, the so-called “Jane Byrne Flyover” to I-290, part of a larger reconstruction project focused on the notorious Circle Interchange, “will replace the existing single-lane, winding ramp with a two-lane ramp and bridge that begins just south of Roosevelt Road and arches over Harrison Street, the rest of the Jane Byrne Interchange, and Halsted Street, before connecting to the outbound Eisenhower near Morgan Street.”
Ramp to ramp, the entire structure will be about a mile in length and stands to improve efficiency and traffic back-ups on the northbound Ryan.
Delays at the Circle Interchange had perennially earned the freight bottleneck the number 1 spot in the American Transportation Research Association’s Top 10 most-congested spots on the highway system for freight before this year, when I-95 at the beginning of the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J., took No. 1.
The start of the project will require several lane and ramp closures until Summer 2016, IDOT said:
**The ramp from the inbound Dan Ryan to inbound Congress Parkway into Chicago’s Loop will be closed. Detour routes will direct vehicles to exit on Roosevelt Road to access Congress Parkway via Jefferson, Harrison and Wells streets. The ramp from the inbound Dan Ryan to the outbound Eisenhower will remain open but shifted to a temporary roadway.
**The inbound and outbound Stevenson Expressway (I-55) ramps to the Dan Ryan will be reduced from two lanes to one lane.
**The right lane of the inbound Dan Ryan from the Stevenson to Roosevelt Road will be closed.
**The ramp from Roosevelt Road to I-290/Congress Parkway will be closed. Detour routes will direct vehicles to continue east on Roosevelt Road to connect with Congress Parkway via Jefferson, Harrison and Wells streets. To connect with the outbound Eisenhower, they will be directed to continue west on Roosevelt and utilize Ashland Avenue and Van Buren Street.
**The ramp from Taylor Street to the inbound Dan Ryan will be closed. A detour route will direct vehicles to connect with the inbound Dan Ryan from Taylor Street via Jefferson Street and the Adams Street entrance ramp.
**The ramp from the inbound Dan Ryan to the outbound Eisenhower will remain open, but shifted to a temporary roadway.
Later this summer and fall, IDOT, in conjunction with the City of Chicago, will be scheduling closures on some parts of the expressway system at the Circle Interchange to facilitate the placement of the flyover’s beams. During those weekends, access to Congress Parkway will be closed to incoming Eisenhower traffic and multiple lanes will be closed on the Dan Ryan and Kennedy expressways. Follow updates via CircleInterchange.org.
