Drivers eagerly awaiting the reopening of the reversible center lanes on the Kennedy Expressway will have to wait a little bit longer.
Reopening the express lanes, and the conclusion of the second of three years of construction on the highway, has been pushed back to January. Though lane closures began weeks earlier than usual this spring and work was initially slated to wrap up in the fall, integrating the technical components of the access system to the reversible lanes proved to be more complicated and time consuming than expected and pushed back the reopening date, officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation said.
“The remaining work, which includes the configuring and connecting of the individual components to the overall system, is currently being completed behind the scenes,” said Jonathan Schumacher, IDOT’s bureau chief of construction. “Which is why it seems like there’s nobody out there working when you drive through the work zone.”
IDOT now expects to reopen the lanes the week of January 13. The agency plans to begin testing the reversible lane access system January 2.
The reopening of the lanes will mark the completion of the second year of the $150 million, traffic-snarling rehab of the Kennedy Expressway. The project, paid through the state’s capital program, is rehabbing 7.5 miles of the 10-lane highway from the I-94 split south to downtown. All told, it will include work on 36 bridges and the express lanes, replacing overhead signs, upgrading lighting, paving and painting. It has also included painting and installing new lighting at the Hubbard underpass between Ohio and Lake streets downtown.
The first phase of the work took place in 2023 in the inbound, or southbound, lanes, leaving two closed at a time between March and December and the express lanes open only heading toward downtown.
This year work moved to the express lanes and Hubbard’s Cave downtown beginning in March, and in spring 2025 work is set to begin on the outbound, or northbound, lanes. Once construction restarts, two outbound lanes will be closed at a time, and the express lanes will be open only heading north from downtown.
This year’s work on the express lanes included both bridge repair and pavement work, and work on the system that controls access to the lanes, which was last upgraded in 1996. Many of the gates controlling access to the lanes will look similar to previous versions, Schumacher said, but the work is intended to make the system more reliable. The access system’s technology is being updated and will now be able to be controlled remotely from IDOT’s communications center.
The bridge, pavement and sign work was finished in the fall, Schumacher said. Crews replaced 90,000 feet of power cable and installed some 150,000 feet of fiber optic cables, 120 gates and 54 cameras, he said.
Since then, the focus has been on the express lane access system, including electrical and software work. That includes connecting individual pieces to the larger system, and getting the various components to work together and integrating closed circuit TV cameras into the system has taken longer than expected, Schumacher said.
All the pieces of the system have now been installed, he said.
“We are fully aware of the inconvenience this has been to the motorists,” he said. “However, this last step is crucial to the safety of those driving using the system. We need to ensure the system works properly and safely before we can open it to traffic.”
While the lanes remained closed to the public, drivers might have seen the express lanes in use during the Democratic National Convention this summer. The Secret Service requested access to the lanes, but the gate system that controls access to the lanes was not yet working so the lanes could not be opened more broadly, spokeswoman Maria Castaneda said.
The project has remained close to budget, Schumacher said. Contractors working on the road and the reversible lane access system have been working well and in contact with with IDOT.
“It’s just a lot of work to get done in a pretty quick timeframe,” Schumacher said. “This was always going to be the most challenging of the three years.”