Chicago Traffic: South Loop to Oak Brook (Oak Park: apartment, house)

[j20034b]

I just got a job offer in Chicago and the company is based out of Oak Brook. I have always wanted to live in Chicago my entire. I enjoy the city life as I am single and there are more activities for singles and there are more people like me in the city. I have no friends or family in Chicago so I will like to be around a lot people and where everything is walking distance with plenty of activities. I would love to move back to the suburbs when I settle down.....Looking at the map and reading about Oak Brook, it seems more of a suburb to me. I am currently looking for an apartment in Chicago. I found an apartment in south loop right by the intersection of I-290 and I-90 so I'll pretty much spend my entire trip on I-290. Google map says the apartment 17 miles from my workplace but I am a little worried about the traffic. My job is from 8-5 so I plan on leaving home at 7am and heading back at 5pm. What kind of drive time should I be expecting? Is it realistic to leave home at 7am and get to Oak Brook by 8am.

[ToriaT]

For living in the city you have made a wise choice as your place is accessible to the highway. Traffic is going to be bad no matter how you slice and dice it. I would not plan on leaving at seven to get there by eight especially in the beginning when you want to make a good impression and be on time. Somedays it will be possible to leave at seven and get there by eight but other days it could take two hours if it is during a snow storm. I would plan on leaving at six thirty and then see how it goes. The good news is you are going reverse of heavy traffic. If you find the drive unbearable, you can move somewhere closer in a year.

[pete6032]

When are they starting reconstruction of 290?

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by pete6032

When are they starting reconstruction of 290?

Not anytime soon. Its still in the planning phase. Next will be the lawsuit phase. Probably not for at least 5 years.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

Not anytime soon. Its still in the planning phase. Next will be the lawsuit phase. Probably not for at least 5 years.

I would urge anyone to look at the EXTENSIVE public web site that IDOT hosts at Eisenhower Expressway: Chicago I-290 to see the detailed schedule that exists for the planning and eventual widening of the Ike through the horrendous bottleneck that currently exists in Oak Park. Many of Oak Park's political leaders have been deeply involved in making suggestions that will have the least negative impact upon the Village / its residents.

To think that there are people already itching to make the process more expensive, more contentious and further harm the competitive environment for the region clearly shows why some have such antipathy for the nuts in this tree lined village...

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I would urge anyone to look at the EXTENSIVE public web site that IDOT hosts at Eisenhower Expressway: Chicago I-290 to see the detailed schedule that exists for the planning and eventual widening of the Ike through the horrendous bottleneck that currently exists in Oak Park. Many of Oak Park's political leaders have been deeply involved in making suggestions that will have the least negative impact upon the Village / its residents.

To think that there are people already itching to make the process more expensive, more contentious and further harm the competitive environment for the region clearly shows why some have such antipathy for the nuts in this tree lined village...

Hey don't kill the messenger. I'm just telling it like it is.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

Hey don't kill the messenger. I'm just telling it like it is.

Nothing personal against OPD, your posts are mostly balanced and you seem capable of understanding that every housing choice has some trade-offs.

The thing that galls me is that even with the extensive efforts that IDOT has undertaken to get input from not just the elected leaders of Oak Park but a whole string of public meetings there are already goofbals that feel they simply must have their day in court for what is clearly a hugely expensive and much needed project. Honestly if these cranks are so opposed to anything that does not fit their private little utopian view of things they probably will drag things out and add such expense that it might be better to just have a backhoe or roadgrader "accidently" level their house / back over them now and pay 'em to get the heck out...

[s0nginmyheart]

I used to live in the South Loop and commute to Oak Brook for meetings on occasion. I would suggest the following to cut down on some of your commute time:

Take 290 and exit Austin (where all the traffic starts to happen)
Turn left at the exit and continue south on Austin
Turn right (west) at Roosevelt Rd and continue

Side streets won't be as bad as the Eisenhower. Depending on where in Oak Brook you are, this could be a relatively painless commute. If you need to get back on the highway, I would suggest doing it at Harlem or Mannheim.

Sometimes if I want to be a smartass because of all of the traffic backing up, I'll also exit Austin, turn right (north) at exit, make a U-Turn at the Shell at the corner and hop on the highway again at Austin. This shaves off probably 15-20 minutes.

Your commute will probably still be in the 30-45 minute range, pending weather.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by s0nginmyheart

I used to live in the South Loop and commute to Oak Brook for meetings on occasion. I would suggest the following to cut down on some of your commute time:

Take 290 and exit Austin (where all the traffic starts to happen)
Turn left at the exit and continue south on Austin
Turn right (west) at Roosevelt Rd and continue

Side streets won't be as bad as the Eisenhower. Depending on where in Oak Brook you are, this could be a relatively painless commute. If you need to get back on the highway, I would suggest doing it at Harlem or Mannheim.

Sometimes if I want to be a smartass because of all of the traffic backing up, I'll also exit Austin, turn right (north) at exit, make a U-Turn at the Shell at the corner and hop on the highway again at Austin. This shaves off probably 15-20 minutes.

Your commute will probably still be in the 30-45 minute range, pending weather.

There are tens of thousands of folks using real-time crowd sourced traffic info like Waze everyday on all the area expressways and the data from such users paints a pretty clear picture -- unless there are unusual circumstances (like an ill time motorcade of some politician here for a fund raiser...) or a major traffic collision , sticking with the expressway is really the way to go. Alternative surface routes have so many traffic lights and buses, to say nothing of delivery trucks and bad parallell parkers, that it almost never is a true time saver.

You might feel a little less "rage" but it ain't gonna get you anywhere faster.

Similalry you might feel like you are somehow "outsmarting the horde" but there is no way that exiting and re-entering the expressway saves any appreciable time at all.

The commute times vary pretty uniformly with AM genrally about 10-15 minutes on average faster than PM, chalk that up to fewer people eager to get to work than get home at an any given "start vs end time".

[s0nginmyheart]

I've made that commute often enough to know when I'm saving time. The back up starts before Austin because Austin turns into an exit lane on the left. The left exit lane is always clear because everyone is trying to merge right. If OP didn't want to take Roosevelt up toward Oak Brook, that is why I suggested he hop back on the highway at Austin (which cuts through all the back up). I would not suggest exiting and then re-entering the highway, say on the Kennedy, but this particular exit on the Eisenhower makes sense and does save time.

OP can test it out and report back.