In the South Loop, reconfiguring the Congress Parkway interchange will improve traffic safety and create new green space.

By Gabija Steponenaite

Last April, workers began a three-year, three-stage project to revive and improve Wacker Drive. When reconstruction concludes in 2012, Chicagoans will see substantial improvements not only to Wacker but to Congress Parkway.

“The main reason for the reconstruction of Wacker Drive was the condition of the roadway,” said Brian Steele, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT).

According to www.wackerdrive.org, the CDOT and Illinois Department of Transportation website detailing Wacker Drive construction information, significant changes for Upper Wacker Drive from Randolph to Congress Streets include removing ramps to Lower Wacker Drive at Jackson, Adams, and Washington Streets and replacing them with landscaped medians. Workers also will add sidewalk planters and decorative light fixtures to Upper Wacker, remove the ramp at Monroe Street, and build a new one-way ramp to Lower Wacker.

When Lower Wacker construction started last spring, officials reduced traffic to one lane in each direction for the project’s duration to allow for utility work. Construction personnel will replace deteriorated viaducts and lift the vertical clearance by more than a foot beginning in January. They also will separate service drive and through lanes and install new lighting and ventilation equipment.

In the South Loop, reconfiguring the Congress Parkway interchange will improve traffic safety and create new green space.

Improvements include moving the eastbound Congress exit ramp at Franklin Street and moving the Lower Wacker entrance ramp onto westbound Congress, both below ground.

Removing the current Franklin Street ramp onto westbound Congress will eliminate a doublemerge with the Lower Wacker ramp onto westbound Congress.

Also, after construction, the Lower Wacker ramp will have a longer merge lane.

“Currently, construction work is going on in the lower level and does not have a lot of impact on drivers or businesses,” Steele said. “It will become more visible, however, when we start the viaduct reconstruction in 2011.”

To minimize construction effects on businesses, residents, and drivers, no more than two intersections will be under construction at the same time.

The project’s price tag is $350 million, according to CDOT.

Besides improving driving conditions, the project will add approximately three acres of green space to the area. Also, Oscar O. D’Angelo Park, surrounded by ramps connecting the Eisenhower Expressway and Wacker Drive and a tour bus staging area, will become more visible and accessible.

“It is getting enlarged, big ramps are going under ground, and the park will be re-landscaped,” said Erma Tranter, president of the park advocacy organization Friends of the Parks. “The City is planning to plant native trees and shrubs there.”

She noted a redesigned park will benefit residential communities in the Loop, South Loop, and south of Congress Street, as those areas do not have many parks.

The project is incorporating environmentally friendly approaches.

As Steele explained, “When we demolish the old roadway, we will reuse as much as possible the old concrete and steel. We are also putting in a new storm water management system. This new system will redirect the first flush of most polluted storm water into the sewage system rather than the Chicago River.”

In addition, workers will install light-emitting diode traffic signals, which last longer and aremore energy efficient than incandescent traffic signals.

For 80 years Wacker Drive has been a major roadway running through Chicago’s center. The east-west part was built in 1920, and the north-south part in 1955.

“Wacker Drive is the only two level roadway in the main area of downtown Chicago,” Steele said. “Very few United States cities have this type of roadway in their central business district.” About 60, 000 vehicles travel daily on the drive’s lower and upper levels.