Robert Kingery Expressway
$430M Redo Addresses Safety, Mobility, Road Quality
by Pamela Dittmer McKuen The four-year
Robert Kingery Expressway reconstruction is on track for an early 2007 finish.
The
50-year-old expressway, which is supporting traffic seven times what it was designed
to handle, is undergoing a massive transformation.
The $430 million project will improve public safety, traffic mobility
and road conditions, and it will have a nationwide impact.
The Kingery
(Interstate 80/Interstate 94), which runs east and west from the Tri-State Tollway
(Interstate 294) to the Indiana border, bears portions of pavement that were laid
in the 1950s. About 160,000 vehicles travel this route daily, one-quarter of them
large trucks. By 2020, the average daily traffic count is projected to grow to
192,000 vehicles per day.
"They had no way to predict the weight and
volume of the truck traffic this road carries now," said Mike Wiater, an
Illinois Department of Transportation project engineer who is supervising the
job. "This has become one of the major east-west links through the country."
Project
Has 'SPUDIs' Begun in 2003, the project stretches 6.6 mi. and includes lane
additions; resurfacing; bridge replacement and enhancement; two reconstructed
interchanges, known as SPUDIs, an acronym for single-point urban diamond interchanges;
local access-road improvements; retaining walls to support new embankments; sound
barriers; and new high-mast tower lighting and surveillance equipment.
It
also includes about a mile of the Bishop Ford Freeway (I-94 north of I-80) and
a mile of Illinois 394 south of I-80.
Among the specifics:
Kingery reconstruction and widening.
Reconstructed interchange at I-94/Illinois
394, where flyover ramps replace loop ramps.
Reconstructed Torrence
Avenue (Route 83) interchange.
Widening I-94/IL-394 from U.S. Highway
6 (159th Street) to Thornton-Lansing Road.
When finished, the Kingery will
be widened from three to four lanes, plus additional lanes that take ramps. In
places, it will be 14 or more lanes across.
Overall, we're increasing the
capacity and increasing the safety of the roadway through the design," said
IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey.
We'll be giving drivers more time to cut
across lanes. That is going to make things a lot safer as well as getting drivers
through there more quickly. When you cut down on accidents, you also cut down
on congestion.
The two flyovers, which connect eastbound Kingery to northbound
Bishop Ford and southbound Bishop Ford to eastbound Kingery, are "a real
engineering marvel and cover a lot of ground," Claffey added.
That '70s Reconstruction No substantial work has been done to the highway
since the 1970s, and since then, construction methods and technology have changed
greatly. For example, the new roads will be built using a 12-in. aggregate subgrade,
6-in. stabilized subbase of bituminous material and 14 in. of continuously reinforced
concrete.
In comparison, "what we're taking out of the existing roadway
is 8 or 9 in. of unreinforced concrete with 4 to 6 in. of asphalt overlay,"
Wiater said.
Doing the work are hundreds of contractors and subcontractors,
several of whom formed joint ventures. Among them is the Lorig/Lindahl/Herlihy
Joint Venture, made up of Lorig Construction Co. of Des Plaines, Lindahl Bros.
of Des Plaines and Herlihy Mid-Continent Co. of Romeoville.
"It is
a large project and we felt that one contractor wouldn't be able to handle it
all," said Pete Element, a Herlihy project manager. "For example, when
there were four jobs that were let at one time, in order to bid on all four, we
set up the joint venture."
The rough division of labor within that
venture is: Lorig and Herlihy on roads and bridges and Lindahl on earthwork. But
those roles are somewhat fluid, depending on the contract. And not all contracts
have been awarded yet. Keeping Traffic Moving Contractors
who in another setting might be competitors have become team members in this larger
effort, and they must work together to keep traffic moving.
"Any project
or combination of projects of this magnitude is complicated, and scheduling is
challenging," said Tim Riemersma, a senior project manager for Lorig.
"The
interface of contracts is critical so that one contract does not cause another
contract to fall behind schedule."
Lane closures - when to close which
ones, when and for how long - are an exercise in extreme logistics.
On
the Bishop Ford section, which has three lanes in each direction, one lane in
each direction is closed on a rotating basis while being rebuilt. The Illinois
394 section has been taken down to one lane in each direction.
"On
the Kingery itself, we're committed to not closing existing lanes of traffic,
so we're maintaining three lanes east of I-94," Wiater said. "It stays
the same number, but sometimes we're jogging traffic onto shoulders or making
lanes narrower than before but we're maintaining three lanes."
When
other lane closures are necessary, such as in sections where bridgework is going
on overhead, they are done during nonpeak hours.
"Pretty much, any
night there is going to be a lane closure somewhere along the project," Wiater
added.
Weekly coordination meetings are essential for smooth interaction
between contractors and minimal disruption to the public. As needed, various contractors
have and will be working nights and weekends.
"We spend a large amount
of time coordinating," Wiater said. "When contractors come in here requesting
lane closures, we try to sort them out and try to combine them so we don't have
conflicts."Next Flurry of Activity The project's most
recent milestone was the opening of the reconstructed Thornton-Lansing Road Bridge
over IL-394 in time for the Memorial Day weekend. The bridge had been closed since
work began in September.
"It was originally two lanes and now it's
two lanes," Wiater said.
The next big flurry of activity will occur
late this fall when several portions of the project are finished closely together.
Notable among them are the Torrence interchange and most of the roadwork, Wiater
said.
"Our goal is to get finished on time within budget and to have
no accidents to our workers or the motoring public," Element said. There
have been no major accidents since the project began.
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