Illinois Tollway Notes

[abefroman329]

I94 Eden's junction to Touhy - 65
I94 from Touhy to Kennedy Junction - 60

That's faster than I'd be comfortable traveling on those stretches of the Edens, and as pointed out elsewhere, there aren't many hours of the day when you can travel that fast anyway.

[dave069]

https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/580106/2018_SpeedLimits_Cars%252CTrucks%252CBuses/6bca008a-586b-46ad-9f36-9105f2acc35e

The tollway authority has spoken, there is a(nother) 70 mph zone in Cook County!.

The 70 zone on I-90 has been pulled further in toward Chicago ending at just short of Arlington Heights Road interchange (MP 70) with a 60 mph limit all the way to the Kennedy. 

This confirms Dave069's post which I hotly but wrongly contested - https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17650.msg2309528.  The weight-class speed limit needs to go next, along with any 55 zones on the tri-state, kingery and borman. (make them 65 if not 70 please!)

Glad they finally did it! I would like to see the weight class speed limit and the 55 zones go too, but I don't think the odds of that happening are particularly high.

[SSOWorld]

https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/580106/2018_SpeedLimits_Cars%252CTrucks%252CBuses/6bca008a-586b-46ad-9f36-9105f2acc35e

The tollway authority has spoken, there is a(nother) 70 mph zone in Cook County!.

The 70 zone on I-90 has been pulled further in toward Chicago ending at just short of Arlington Heights Road interchange (MP 70) with a 60 mph limit all the way to the Kennedy. 

This confirms Dave069's post which I hotly but wrongly contested - https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17650.msg2309528.  The weight-class speed limit needs to go next, along with any 55 zones on the tri-state, kingery and borman. (make them 65 if not 70 please!)

Glad they finally did it! I would like to see the weight class speed limit and the 55 zones go too, but I don't think the odds of that happening are particularly high.

Yeah because Chicago/Cook County.

[Crash_It]

I94 Eden's junction to Touhy - 65
I94 from Touhy to Kennedy Junction - 60

That's faster than I'd be comfortable traveling on those stretches of the Edens, and as pointed out elsewhere, there aren't many hours of the day when you can travel that fast anyway.

That's why I said up to Touhy, that's where it starts bogging down. However before then you can go 60-65 pretty reliably. I don't do it though.

[johndoe780]

https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/580106/2018_SpeedLimits_Cars%252CTrucks%252CBuses/6bca008a-586b-46ad-9f36-9105f2acc35e

The tollway authority has spoken, there is a(nother) 70 mph zone in Cook County!.

The 70 zone on I-90 has been pulled further in toward Chicago ending at just short of Arlington Heights Road interchange (MP 70) with a 60 mph limit all the way to the Kennedy. 

This confirms Dave069's post which I hotly but wrongly contested - https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17650.msg2309528.  The weight-class speed limit needs to go next, along with any 55 zones on the tri-state, kingery and borman. (make them 65 if not 70 please!)

Glad they finally did it! I would like to see the weight class speed limit and the 55 zones go too, but I don't think the odds of that happening are particularly high.

Yeah because Chicago/Cook County.

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180328/speed-limit-now-70-on-i-90-from-mount-prospect-to-elgin#autoplay

[JREwing78]

Excellent. One less stretch of underposted freeway in the Chicagoland.

[Crash_It]

https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/580106/2018_SpeedLimits_Cars%252CTrucks%252CBuses/6bca008a-586b-46ad-9f36-9105f2acc35e

The tollway authority has spoken, there is a(nother) 70 mph zone in Cook County!.

The 70 zone on I-90 has been pulled further in toward Chicago ending at just short of Arlington Heights Road interchange (MP 70) with a 60 mph limit all the way to the Kennedy. 

This confirms Dave069's post which I hotly but wrongly contested - https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17650.msg2309528.  The weight-class speed limit needs to go next, along with any 55 zones on the tri-state, kingery and borman. (make them 65 if not 70 please!)

Glad they finally did it! I would like to see the weight class speed limit and the 55 zones go too, but I don't think the odds of that happening are particularly high.

Yeah because Chicago/Cook County.

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180328/speed-limit-now-70-on-i-90-from-mount-prospect-to-elgin#autoplay

I'll echo the same thing I said on the article, hopefully enforcement is beefed up as well. There's always some idiot that will tailgate and weave every lane to try and go faster.

[dave069]

I drove it tonight and didn't notice any change in traffic. Seeing that first 70 mph sign at the oasis was truly amazing.

[Great Lakes Roads]

This morning when I was driving along I-294 on my way to O'Hare, I noticed that some of the message board signs were saying, "Trucks use the right two lanes"... I thought that was pretty interesting because truckers always hog the lane that is illegal to the truckers... 

[Revive 755]

Surprised no one has posted about the "Tri-County Access Project" study which the IL 53 Extension study turned into.

Link to study website

[Joe The Dragon]

Surprised no one has posted about the "Tri-County Access Project" study which the IL 53 Extension study turned into.

Link to study website

as well as Kenosha County. FAP 420??

[ChiMilNet]

Surprised no one has posted about the "Tri-County Access Project" study which the IL 53 Extension study turned into.

Link to study website

as well as Kenosha County. FAP 420??

The seems to have been a bit embedded within the Tollway website. However, this is interesting to see a timeline on this study. It is long needed, and I would hope that this could be the definitive, "once and for all" decision. Plain and simply, IL 53 needs to be extended, and IL 120 needs improvement. FAP 420 would, in my opinion, have benefits that far outweigh the costs, but we'll see.

[ET21]

Looks like we have some action in terms of I-490/390. Sound barriers have begun to go up along York Road on the west side of the road and demarcations of ramp extensions have started to get outlined with some land leveling for roadway/piers

[Beltway]

The outbound Kennedy from the loop is mostly 4 lanes during the morning peak.  It widens to 6 lanes before the split.  3 lanes to the Edens and 3 lanes to the Kennedy.  But assuming that the traffic from the loop splits evenly, and that is a reasonably good assumption, you have 2 lanes of moving traffic (1/2 of the 4 lanes) with 3 lanes of highway to use.  So unless the road is overloaded or there is some accident blocking lanes you have a lot of spare capacity and traffic moves well for you.  Moreover, a lot of the thru traffic heading from Indiana to Milwaukee is taking the Tri-State instead, especially if they want to bypass the brutal morning commute on the northbound Dan Ryan so the problems on the Dan Ryan translate into a free-flowing Edens.

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

[ET21]

The outbound Kennedy from the loop is mostly 4 lanes during the morning peak.  It widens to 6 lanes before the split.  3 lanes to the Edens and 3 lanes to the Kennedy.  But assuming that the traffic from the loop splits evenly, and that is a reasonably good assumption, you have 2 lanes of moving traffic (1/2 of the 4 lanes) with 3 lanes of highway to use.  So unless the road is overloaded or there is some accident blocking lanes you have a lot of spare capacity and traffic moves well for you.  Moreover, a lot of the thru traffic heading from Indiana to Milwaukee is taking the Tri-State instead, especially if they want to bypass the brutal morning commute on the northbound Dan Ryan so the problems on the Dan Ryan translate into a free-flowing Edens.

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

Too many interchanges in that stretch is probably my guess

[abefroman329]

The outbound Kennedy from the loop is mostly 4 lanes during the morning peak.  It widens to 6 lanes before the split.  3 lanes to the Edens and 3 lanes to the Kennedy.  But assuming that the traffic from the loop splits evenly, and that is a reasonably good assumption, you have 2 lanes of moving traffic (1/2 of the 4 lanes) with 3 lanes of highway to use.  So unless the road is overloaded or there is some accident blocking lanes you have a lot of spare capacity and traffic moves well for you.  Moreover, a lot of the thru traffic heading from Indiana to Milwaukee is taking the Tri-State instead, especially if they want to bypass the brutal morning commute on the northbound Dan Ryan so the problems on the Dan Ryan translate into a free-flowing Edens.

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

Because it was difficult enough to get the land they needed to build it in its current configuration, let alone acquiring the land to add another 2 lanes in each direction.  Not to mention having to rebuild the overpass that runs from the Stevenson to just before the Eisenhower, the Metra bridge over the Kennedy, the Green Line bridge over the Kennedy...

[Beltway]

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

Too many interchanges in that stretch is probably my guess

They need to eliminate some of the ramps, especially the left-hand ramps.  They could build a dual-divided design whereby the outer roadways have the ramp connections.  It would be expensive, would need to expand the right-of-way at least 70 feet on each side.

[tribar]

The outbound Kennedy from the loop is mostly 4 lanes during the morning peak.  It widens to 6 lanes before the split.  3 lanes to the Edens and 3 lanes to the Kennedy.  But assuming that the traffic from the loop splits evenly, and that is a reasonably good assumption, you have 2 lanes of moving traffic (1/2 of the 4 lanes) with 3 lanes of highway to use.  So unless the road is overloaded or there is some accident blocking lanes you have a lot of spare capacity and traffic moves well for you.  Moreover, a lot of the thru traffic heading from Indiana to Milwaukee is taking the Tri-State instead, especially if they want to bypass the brutal morning commute on the northbound Dan Ryan so the problems on the Dan Ryan translate into a free-flowing Edens.

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

Because it was difficult enough to get the land they needed to build it in its current configuration, let alone acquiring the land to add another 2 lanes in each direction.  Not to mention having to rebuild the overpass that runs from the Stevenson to just before the Eisenhower, the Metra bridge over the Kennedy, the Green Line bridge over the Kennedy...

All for something that probably wouldn't fix the problem. I don't think there's really much that can be done to fix 90/94 from Montrose to 31st. Just too high of a volume.

[Beltway]

Kennedy with the reversibles has 6 lanes in the direction of peak period traffic.  Dan Ryan has 7 lanes each way.  The highway narrows down to 4 lanes each way thru the downtown, an obvious functional bottleneck.  I have wondered since the 1970s why that hasn't been widened to at least 6 lanes each way.

Because it was difficult enough to get the land they needed to build it in its current configuration, let alone acquiring the land to add another 2 lanes in each direction.  Not to mention having to rebuild the overpass that runs from the Stevenson to just before the Eisenhower, the Metra bridge over the Kennedy, the Green Line bridge over the Kennedy...

All for something that probably wouldn't fix the problem. I don't think there's really much that can be done to fix 90/94 from Montrose to 31st. Just too high of a volume.

Depends on the definition of "fix".  What it would do is match the designs of the lower Kennedy and upper Dan Ryan.  Should have been done 40 years ago.

[abefroman329]

Depends on the definition of "fix".  What it would do is match the designs of the lower Kennedy and upper Dan Ryan.  Should have been done 40 years ago.

I'm just going to state that it was much easier to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway through the South Side than it would have been to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway up the North Side and leave it at that.

[Beltway]

Depends on the definition of "fix".  What it would do is match the designs of the lower Kennedy and upper Dan Ryan.  Should have been done 40 years ago.

I'm just going to state that it was much easier to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway through the South Side than it would have been to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway up the North Side and leave it at that.

I would settle for 6 lanes each way thru the downtown.  It wasn't done at the outset, but it should have been done by now.

[ChimpOnTheWheel]

Looks like we have some action in terms of I-490/390. Sound barriers have begun to go up along York Road on the west side of the road and demarcations of ramp extensions have started to get outlined with some land leveling for roadway/piers

Interesting!

[ET21]

Looks like we have some action in terms of I-490/390. Sound barriers have begun to go up along York Road on the west side of the road and demarcations of ramp extensions have started to get outlined with some land leveling for roadway/piers

Interesting!

Sound barriers might actually be for a new warehouse though, will have to see as time goes on with construction

[ChiMilNet]

It looks like some work on the Central Tri-State Rebuild/Widening will begin this year on the portion in Rosemont and Franklin Park. The link below and the Tollway website show that this has been added to the construction schedule. Personally, I am glad to see this as this stretch is a particular choke-point, especially for South Bound traffic. It's going to be a mess the next couple of years, but I am hopeful that this will help alleviate the chronic traffic backups that plague I-294 SB each afternoon. This site also highlights other Chicago Area projects.

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180416/construction-season-is-here-x2014-our-guide-to-surviving-it

[skluth]

Depends on the definition of "fix".  What it would do is match the designs of the lower Kennedy and upper Dan Ryan.  Should have been done 40 years ago.

I'm just going to state that it was much easier to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway through the South Side than it would have been to obtain the land to run a 14-lane expressway up the North Side and leave it at that.

I would settle for 6 lanes each way thru the downtown.  It wasn't done at the outset, but it should have been done by now.

I don't see where six lanes fits through those tunnels just south of the Ohio/Ontario connector