Jane Byrne

Flyover ramp opens Sunday at Jane Byrne Interchange

Dec 1, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) The new flyover ramp linking the inbound Dan Ryan Expressway to the outbound Eisenhower Expressway will open on Sunday.

The Illinois Department of Transportations says the single open lane will help improve traffic flow and safety for approximately 400,000 motorists that drive through the Jane Byrne Interchange each day. The second lane on the flyover ramp will open after work is completed in the summer of 2018.

The opening requires some temporary closures, officials said.

Beginning at 8 p.m. Friday, the ramp from inbound Kennedy Expressway to the outbound Eisenhower will be closed from Madison Street to Halsted Street. Outbound Dan Ryan traffic will exit at 18th Street and re-enter the inbound Dan Ryan taking the ramp to outbound Eisenhower. The right lane of the inbound Kennedy will also be closed. All lanes and ramps on the inbound Kennedy will reopen by 5 a.m. Monday.

At 11 p.m. Friday, Congress Parkway will be reduced to one lane between Canal Street and Morgan Street until 2 p.m. Sunday, according to IDOT.

Beginning at 9 p.m. Saturday, the right lane of the inbound Dan Ryan will be closed from 26th Street to Harrison Street, said IDOT. A second lane closure will begin two hours later but all lanes will reopen at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Construction on the flyover started in September 2014. This weekend, ramps from the Stevenson Expressway to the inbound Dan Ryan will be restored to two lanes, and all lanes on the inbound Dan Ryan and the Roosevelt Road entrance ramp to the outbound Eisenhower will reopen.

The flyover ramp replaces the existing single-lane, winding ramp with a two-lane ramp and bridge that begins just south of Roosevelt and arches over Harrison, the rest of the Jane Byrne Interchange and Halsted before connecting to the outbound Eisenhower near Morgan Street. When construction is complete the entire structure will stretch about 1 mile, IDOT said.

Major work to start March 7 on Jane Byrne Interchange; project to last 16 months

Feb 24, 2015 |

(CHICAGO) Drivers approaching the Jane Byrne Interchange — now one of the nation’s worst bottlenecks — will face a spaghetti bowl of detours and reduced lanes for more than a year after construction begins March 7 on a flyover bridge, the Sun-Times is reporting.

Needing a stiff dose of patience until at least the summer of 2016 will be:

— South Siders taking the Dan Ryan Expressway (Interstate 90/94) into the Loop;

— Folks traveling back and forth from west of the city to downtown on the Stevenson Expressway (I-55);

— Drivers switching from the inbound Ryan to the outbound Eisenhower Expressway (I-290).

They will soon face ramp lane or road lane reductions and even some detours during the next phase of the $475 million overhaul of the interchange — a connection point crossed by 400,000 drivers daily.

But by far, experts say, the biggest logjam will hit over four weekends sometime this summer or fall. That’s when workers will install beams of the long-awaited flyover that will connect the inbound Ryan with the outbound Eisenhower. The exact weekends have not yet been identified.

During the worst two of those weekends, all lanes of the Eisenhower on either side of the Ryan will be shut down, and 1-mile to nearly 2-mile sections of the Ryan approaching or leaving downtown will be limited to one lane in each direction, Illinois Department of Transportation officials say.

“It won’t be pretty,” said Tom Kaeser, a former senior traffic engineer for the Chicago Department of Transportation.

“I’m sure that IDOT and CDOT will publicize this a lot and urge everyone to avoid using these roadways, as they did during the Ohio-Ontario ramp removal work along the Kennedy” Expressway in June 2014.

“Anyone who is aware of these closures and still tries to drive through will have only themselves to blame if they get stuck in traffic,” Kaeser said.

IDOT is still working with the city to schedule those four weekends of work, IDOT spokeswoman Carson Quinn said. Chicago is buzzing with festivals in July, August and even September, when the Chicago Bears’ regular season starts.

Also hard hit may be fans of the White Sox and Bulls and Bears because their stadiums are close to the work zone.

Over the first two weekends of work, the inbound Ryan will be reduced to one lane, tentatively, from Canalport to Van Buren — or for about 15 blocks; the outbound Ryan will be narrowed to one lane from roughly Lake Street to Harrison — or for about eight blocks.

Those same two weekends, the outbound Eisenhower will be completely inaccessible via Congress Parkway, and inbound travelers will have to exit the Eisenhower before the Ryan, possibly around Ashland, Quinn said.

On the final two weekends, only outbound Eisenhower and outbound Ryan traffic will face closures or lane reductions.

The less severe changes that begin March 7 will stretch on “until summer 2016,” according to IDOT.

That means for about 16 months, South Side travelers heading from the Ryan into the Loop will hit ramp detour signs starting at Roosevelt. Drivers moving from the Stevenson to the Ryan, or vice versa, will deal with lane reductions on ramps and roadways.

The heavily traveled inbound Ryan connection with the Eisenhower will see drivers directed to a temporary road.

“Since we are shifting the inbound Dan Ryan lanes toward the median using a little tighter lanes, we will build a small runaround or connection to connect the outer lane of the inbound Ryan to the existing flyover, which [will continue] to be used until the new flyover is built,’’ Quinn said in an emailed statement.

“We are talking about a couple of hundred feet of roadway to complete the gap and allow traffic to exit safely.”

When the misery ends, the Jane Byrne Interchange flyover will replace the existing single-lane ramp from the inbound Ryan to the outbound Eisenhower with a milelong ramp, starting at Roosevelt, and a two-lane bridge.

Better yet, IDOT officials say, it should reduce traffic delays by at least 50 percent.

More information on the four-year project, including a live-stream of construction work, can be found at www.CircleInterchange.org.

–Sun-Times

Yearlong closures looming for Jane Byrne Flyover construction

Feb 18, 2015 |

(CHICAGO) Extensive closures and reroutes to the Jane Byrne Interchange are scheduled to go into effect on March 7 for construction projects that are slated to last more than a year.

The Jane Byrne Flyover project will bridge the inbound Interstate 90/94 Dan Ryan Expressway to the outbound I-290 Eisenhower Expressway, according to a statement from the Illinois Department of Transportation.

With work scheduled until the summer months of 2016, closures will include:

–the ramp from the inbound Dan Ryan to the inbound Congress Parkway, with detours posted from the Roosevelt exit;

–the right lane of the inbound Dan Ryan from the I-55 Stevenson Expressway ramp to Roosevelt;

–the ramp from Roosevelt to Congress Parkway, with detours posted on Roosevelt; and

–the ramp from Taylor Street to the inbound Dan Ryan, with detours posted on Jefferson Street and the Adams Street entrance ramp;

Additionally, both Stevenson ramps to the Dan Ryan will be reduced to one lane, and the ramp from the inbound Dan Ryan to the outbound Eisenhower will be shifted to a temporary roadway, officials said.

This summer and fall, some parts of the downtown expressway system will be temporarily shut down completely as crews place support beams, IDOT officials said.

Drivers are advised to add some extra time for their commutes until work is complete. But as part of a four-year, $475 million overhaul, the flyover is expected to help reduce congestion by 50 percent at one of the nation’s worst bottlenecks, which carries about 400,000 motorists every day, according to IDOT.