ChiTown Traffic Tattler

Just three words can strike fear into hearts of most any North Side motorist that heads southbound for any distance: Lake Shore Drive Reconstruction. And after seven years of major reconstruction projects that bettered lives for commuters on the Edens Expressway, Tri State Tollway, Reagan Tollway, Dan Ryan Expressway, Bishop Ford Freeway, Borman Expressway and [...]

From the Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch last week: “The CTA is controlling climbing energy costs by locking in the price for three-fourths of the diesel fuel it expects to use this year to power the agency’s approximately 1,800 buses, officials said Wednesday. With the AAA reporting the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in [...]

In launching a new Web site containing structural ratings for state-maintained bridges, the Illinois Department of Transportation promises to offer more access and be more transparency for motorists. The initiative will allow motorists to learn how safe the state’s nearly 27,000 bridges are, according to a IDOT news release announcing Web site. “We want the [...]

The Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch has a great piece looking at a study by the League of Illinois Bicyclists that posits that road-widening and reconstruction projects done by local agencies are often superior to work done by state highway engineers. The difference: An interest in how changes affect everyone who uses a roadway versus a focus [...]

IDOT on Wednesday was urging Chicago drivers to avoid downtown expressways for at least 24 hours after after pavement buckled on the westbound Kennedy Expressway at Adams Street. UPDATE: According to the Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch, the expressway’s pavement buckled near Adams Street when concrete grout flowed through a crack in a repaired section of the [...]

A preliminary study released by the Illinois Department of Transportation finds that a north-south expressway connecting the Jane Addams Tollway to the Tri-State Tollway on the west side O’Hare International Airport would significantly cut travel times to the airport. In addition, a long-planned extension of the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway would contribute to halving travel times for [...]

What do the Stevenson Expressway, Interstate 80, Ill. 59 and the Kennedy Expressway have in common? They are among a group of highways that cause Chicago commuters the most pain, according to the “Commuter Pain Index” released on Friday by IBM. In Friday’s Chicago Tribune, Jon Hilkevitch’s story on the study nails the symptoms to [...]

Jon Hilkevitch in Monday’s Tribune answers a question I have been dying to ask — what’s with these folks hanging around the new pay boxes that line the Lincoln Square and North Center streets these days. Turns out the folks in the bright green T-shirts are temporary workers hired by LAZ Parking, the company managing [...]