Tri-State Tollway I-294 (Elgin, Schaumburg, Algonquin: construction, costs, stats)

[skorch101]

Hello,
Does anyone drive from Homewood/Flossmoor area up to where 290 meets Algonquin Road? I would be driving daily from Homewood/Flossmoor to this location for work probably leaving around 630-7am. In the evenings I would be driving Southbound back to Homewood/Flossmoor leaving the office sometimes as early as 4pm and sometimes as late as 6pm. What would this commute look like? Is it ok (traffic moving fast) if I were to leave around 630am and then come back Southbound around 415pm? Is there anywhere I can lookup historical commute times on this route?

[chet everett]

Technically there are archives of the travel data -- IL: NB I-294 from I-80 - 163rd St to 83rd St (13.72 miles) - Travel Midwest Stats

The level of detail is not really fine enough to account for the "short as part of day / week but miserable for the hours when you are stuck on it" situations that do happen pretty regularly.

The overall level of traffic on the south end of 294 is pretty light until about the 55 junction and then it grows exponentially at the 290 junction.

Going all the way up to Algonquin Rd is going to be a haul anyway you slice it -- 50 miles is tough to swallow. I do think that speeds will be at / above posted limits in the AM if you leave well before 7AM, should you should plan on trying to get to the office well before 8AM. Leaving at 4:15PM is going to be better than leaving at 5:30 but there is A LOT of midday traffic on 53 becuase of Schaumburg and then you also get A LOT of truck traffic on 294 so I would NOT expect traffic to move at posted limits for the ride home, figure maybe 1:15 in good weather / no tie-ups and much longer if there are break downs or snow...

[pvande55]

An alternate is west on 80, north on 355. The part of 355 south of 55 is light traffic. Don't know how it compares in travel time.

[chet everett]

Travel time when things are clear is very similar, but if there is a tie-up 80 can be worse. Always a good idea to keep alternatives in mind but the 355 route adds some miles to an already long journey and that is not a good thing for fuel costs either...

[awestover89]

I'm not too familiar with Homewood area, but looking at it on the map looks like you would be taking 290 to 294. Personally I have been burned one too many times with traffic at the 294 SB ramp, but I go SB in the morning. There were some days that I was literally waiting for over an hour to exit on the 294 ramp.

294 typically doesn't get too badly backed up, my bad experiences have been 290, and occasionally 88/355.

Looks like another potential alternate is 294 all the way up to 90, then 90 to IL-53.

I commute from Schaumburg to NW Indiana, and will only take 290 as an absolute last resort, but again I am going the opposite direction as you.

All I can definitely say is have a preferred route and several backups. Over the years I now have 5 different routes to get me to 294 from my house, so that if there is bad construction or traffic I have alternates. 90 to 294 is my currently preferred route, even though it adds some miles and there is some occasional traffic on 90, but overall my average speed is way better than when I used to take 355/88 or Elgin O'Hare

[chet everett]

I agree with awestover89 -- there are probably 4 or more major tie-ups per year that make the back-ups on just the ONE junction of 294 to 290 crawl for probably triple the regular travel time. Major accident with multiple fatalitilies and the bozos from Illinios Highway Patrol do nothing to deal with traffic, they just go into full on "CSI mode". I have literally sat there and watched 'em measuring distances and such long after the victims are hauled off to the morgue and the fire trucks have washed down the embers. I fully support building a solid case to prosecute but honestly it seems this crosses over into some kind of spite the troopers have for innocent motorists and they wanna make everyone suffer.

The weird thing is that when you look at those archives you generally will not see these HUGE spikes in travel times unless you know EXACTLY when they happened and you look just at that time window. In any "rollup" of weekly / monthly / annual travel data these spike get averaged away and sort of disappear.

Of course if your workplace demands a timely arrival you have to build in the possibility of this kind of scenario and then you end up stressed out.

Originally Posted by awestover89

I'm not too familiar with Homewood area, but looking at it on the map looks like you would be taking 290 to 294. Personally I have been burned one too many times with traffic at the 294 SB ramp, but I go SB in the morning. There were some days that I was literally waiting for over an hour to exit on the 294 ramp.

294 typically doesn't get too badly backed up, my bad experiences have been 290, and occasionally 88/355.

Looks like another potential alternate is 294 all the way up to 90, then 90 to IL-53.

I commute from Schaumburg to NW Indiana, and will only take 290 as an absolute last resort, but again I am going the opposite direction as you.

All I can definitely say is have a preferred route and several backups. Over the years I now have 5 different routes to get me to 294 from my house, so that if there is bad construction or traffic I have alternates. 90 to 294 is my currently preferred route, even though it adds some miles and there is some occasional traffic on 90, but overall my average speed is way better than when I used to take 355/88 or Elgin O'Hare

[mattywo85]

I am not familiar with 290 but 294 I can give some advice on. Driving up 294 at 630-7am you will likely hit traffic around 294/88 up to O'Hare. You will also likely hit traffic in the O'Hare area from 3pm-6pm. In my experience the traffic is far worse during rush hour than the morning. You could also see some congestion around 294&55, especially during rush hour.