After nine years of construction, most of Jane Byrne Interchange to reopen this month

After nine years of construction and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns, the massive rebuild of the Jane Byrne Interchange that connects major expressways near downtown Chicago is set to be substantially complete in the coming days.

The last of the major exit ramp closures are set to reopen as soon as Friday, or shortly thereafter depending on the weather, representatives from the Illinois Department of Transportation said. After that, a handful of small items, including painting, landscaping, work on lighting and some paving, will continue through winter and spring, but IDOT does not anticipate they will have a major affect on daytime traffic.

IDOT expects the finished project to reduce traffic delays by half, said program development engineer John Baczek. The lower congestion is estimated to mean $180 million annually in savings from increased productivity, and a roughly one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

The rebuild of the major interchange has been underway since 2013. It was intended to ease congestion and modernize the junction that connects the Kennedy, Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways and Ida B. Wells Drive, which opened in the 1960s and has served some 400,000 motorists each day.

The project was expected to be complete in June 2018, but soon ran into delays and cost overruns. The latest estimate for the project is $806.4 million, more than 50% higher than the original price tag of $535.5 million.

IDOT officials have pegged the delays and expense on poor soil in the area, higher than expected costs to build retaining walls and the need to wait for utilities to be relocated. At one point, IDOT blamed engineering firms it hired for missing poor soil conditions that it said contributed to problems with a wall between the Eisenhower Expressway and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s CUPPA Hall, which sank so much during construction it left cracks in the foundation and couldn’t be used for a year until repaired.

This week, officials reiterated that such “construction surprises” contributed to delays, and said the agency also discovered water tunnels it thought were abandoned, but were not.

The agency decided to slow construction from early plans to create fewer traffic and noise disruptions, and delayed the project early on to allow major work at I-55 and DuSable Lake Shore Drive to wrap up so that work would not be underway at two city access points at the same time, Baczek said.

“Large sections of the expressway, ramps, overhead bridges would all be under construction at the same time, which would have dramatically impacted traffic access, transit access and pedestrian access,” he said.

More recently, construction crews encountered COVID-19-era supply chain disruptions, and a strike this summer by workers at companies that produce the materials used in concrete and asphalt pushed the completion date out a handful of weeks, IDOT officials said.

But within days, the northbound entrance ramps from Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard onto the expressway are set to reopen, a second lane is set to open on ramps from the eastbound Eisenhower onto the Dan Ryan and Kennedy, and lanes on the expressways are set to reopen, said Jon Schumacher, bureau chief of construction in the Chicago area for IDOT.

The final project includes additional lanes for vehicles and improvements to exit ramps. Four lanes of traffic will be available northbound and southbound through the interchange, up from three lanes, and there will be new, wide shoulders.

Exit ramp work included creating a two-lane ramp from the northbound expressway onto the westbound Eisenhower, which typically sees heavy traffic. The ramp will be flatter, making it easier for trucks to navigate, especially in bad weather, Baczek said. A ramp from the eastbound Eisenhower onto the northbound expressway will also become two lanes.

Some left hand ramps will be moved to the right side of the expressway, and lanes to access ramps on the Kennedy and Dan Ryan will be separated from through lanes to provide a safer way for cars to merge into traffic or slow to exit the highway. A new underground vault that can hold two olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water is intended to help prevent flooding on the expressway.

Ten bridges over the expressway, containing nine cross streets, were rebuilt as part of the project.

The construction also included work for pedestrians, cyclists, transit-users and residents, such as wider sidewalks and bike lanes on some bridges over the expressway, improvements to the nearby UIC-Halsted Blue Line station, and green spaces near residential buildings.

“This is right smack dab in the downtown area, there’s residential areas, we have a university right there,” Baczek said, describing the pedestrian and transit improvements.

sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com