290 Construction

[meatpuff]

Eminent domain was probably too easy fifty years ago. Cities got carried away with "urban renewal". It made it too easy for them to bulldoze whole sections of town and put up stuff that wound up being white elephants, even though they had the best of intentions. They thought they knew better than the market (i.e. property owners) but overreached.

Now I think maybe it's too hard. It's impossible to get anything done. Even public works that everybody knows are needed. Holy smokes...they don't even need to expand ORD at the moment with the economy the way it is, but the city knows they have to keep pushing ahead. Because they've already fought it out in court for 15 years, and they know it'll probably take another 10, and by then they will need it.

[meatpuff]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Nonsense, I've worked with paving crews doing city and state work and those guys are giving a good day. If you don't know the nature of the work and you're driving by it's easy enough to think people aren't being productive.

Road workers safer with bigger pothole crews, officials say - Chicago Breaking News (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/03/extra-people-filling-potholes-protect-road-workers-officials-say.html - broken link)

Yeah, as it happens the Tribune just ran a blurb addressing this issue. Apparently larger crews are needed for safety. The busier the road, the larger the crew is needed. And when we talk about safety patching potholes, we're not talking about "safety" -- where some crazy union is just trying to pad the payroll while hiding behind the word "safety". These guys get killed all the time. I remember reading about another tragedy just a few weeks ago in Chicagoland.

Friend says I-80 crash suspect a 'do-gooder' who 'panicked' - Chicago Breaking News (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/03/construction-worker-killed-on-i-80.html - broken link)

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by meatpuff

we're not talking about "safety" -- where some crazy union is just trying to pad the payroll while hiding behind the word "safety".

There's nothing crazy about safety and unions insisting on it. Much work is VERY dangerous and people get killed and badly injured quite often.

[Lookout Kid]

I used to have a job surveying and inspecting road and sewer projects (in another city), and was caught multiple times in that "watching people dig a hole" situation. We were mobile, and tried to get to a site when we were needed. But there were times, for instance, when we had to shoot the elevation of some sewer line, and had to wait for the work crew to finish digging it up. Construction is nearly always a sequenced event, where one task must be completed before another can start. Construction managers do their best when creating the schedule to avoid wasted labor hours by utizling critical path schedules and GANTT charts and what not, but there are ALWAYS times when people may have to wait for something else to get finished before they can get back to their own tasks.

[FractalSphere]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

It wouldn't surprise if widening doesn't begin until after 2016. This is a massive project which is barely in the early planning phases.

I've read a number of posts about the 'planning stages' of widening 290 west of Austin. What is such a major plan? It goes from 4 lanes and bottlenecks down to three. Every single day traffic slows down going westbound and opens up going east bound.. AT AUSTIN.

It's not complicated to figure out the lane reduction there causes problems.

It's also not complicated to see that there is PLENTY of berm space on each side of the expressway to handle ONE extra lane westbound of Austin - the couple overpasses that would need a lane widening on the outside could handle that considering there's a shoulder lane there already.

Considering they haven't widened the Kennedy - and the 'open road tolling' completely fails to live up to its name (especially at the Cumberland toll) it's not surprising they're choosing to take only half-steps again on the 290.

[coldwine]

Meanwhile, I'm sure the residents of Chicago who are going to pay for all of this sped into the city-- and their jobs-- on a first-class transit system. Without any delays, ordeals or slow-zones, they zipped on trains and busses of modern design to their destinations.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by FractalSphere

I've read a number of posts about the 'planning stages' of widening 290 west of Austin. What is such a major plan? It goes from 4 lanes and bottlenecks down to three. Every single day traffic slows down going westbound and opens up going east bound.. AT AUSTIN.

It's not complicated to figure out the lane reduction there causes problems.

It's also not complicated to see that there is PLENTY of berm space on each side of the expressway to handle ONE extra lane westbound of Austin - the couple overpasses that would need a lane widening on the outside could handle that considering there's a shoulder lane there already.

Considering they haven't widened the Kennedy - and the 'open road tolling' completely fails to live up to its name (especially at the Cumberland toll) it's not surprising they're choosing to take only half-steps again on the 290.

NO. My experience is that open road tolling has helped tremendously. Cumberland is an exception because of the I-90/I-190 bottleneck. Touhy Av. plaza is much better and elimination of the Deerfield Rd. plaza has helped considerably. Not having to stop. Wait in line and toss the coins certainly trims 5-8 minutes off a trip around 294.

[SJaye]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

NO. My experience is that open road tolling has helped tremendously. Cumberland is an exception because of the I-90/I-190 bottleneck. Touhy Av. plaza is much better and elimination of the Deerfield Rd. plaza has helped considerably. Not having to stop. Wait in line and toss the coins certainly trims 5-8 minutes off a trip around 294.

The Cumberland Toll is often jammed up well past the toll. The main problem is that all traffic on 190 needs to merge left to avoid being forced to exit onto Cumberland Ave. If the subset of folks on 190 who want to get off at Cumberland were forced to merge rather than the much larger subset of folks who want to continue east on 90, there would be less merging and less traffic. In general, just a poorly designed interchange. The toll doesn't help, as the merging of traffic following the toll adds to the pain. A complete re-design of this entire interchange would be ideal.

[Drover]

It's not just 190, but let's not forget that's right where 294 intersects too. So you get I-90, plus 190 airport traffic, and traffic exiting 294 toward the city all trying to squeeze into 3 lanes. This would still be just as much of a choke point if that toll plaza were eliminated tomorrow.

BTW, forcing those who want to exit on Cumberland from 190 to merge into the existing traffic stream wouldn't improve the situation, it would make it even worse. Those weave-merge lanes are there for a very good reason.