Open Road Tolling

Since embarking on a systemwide conversion to Open Road Tolling in January 2005, motorists can now zoom through ORT at nine mainline toll plazas.

The 11 remaining mainline plazas are slated to be complete by the end of this year. ORT separates transponder-based I-PASS users who pay electronically while traveling at normal highway speed from cash payers who pull off to the right in toll plazas.

"Going from an old barrier system of stop, pay and go to a completely open-road tolling system has been done before, but we're doing it systemwide on 20 plazas all at once, and that's a first (nationwide)," said J.D. Stokes, deputy program manager for ORT implementation.

Jeff Dailey, chief engineer for the Illinois Tollway, calls the rapid conversion "short-term pain for long-term gain. We're giving the traveling public a shorter amount of pain on the freeway for an easier way in the future."

"The more expeditiously you can convert from older system to ORT the better," Stokes said. "Dragging it out doesn't work well. The public can say 'this construction is something we didn't like, but we appreciate that you're getting it done.'"

To get the project on the fast track, design and construction phases overlapped.

"We went out to bid when the design stage was about 80 percent complete," Stokes said. "There was enough to build, but we didn't have final answers on specifications for technology and functionality."

This approach, as well as working through the winter, shaved 12 to 18 months off the schedule.

Stokes said work zones were created for traffic control, and "we'd wait several days to see how the traffic flowed before actually tearing out the pavement."

For example, at one toll conversion, there was a 10-mi. backup after creating work zones, but the backup dropped to 3 mi. after workers made specialized signs, painted thicker, wider striping to help motorists know where lanes were going and gave up some workspace to add an additional cash lane.

"The real challenge has been maintaining the schedule within budget," Stokes said.

"Getting it within budget involved value engineering and partnering with the contractor.
We're marrying technology, new buildings and roadway work."

After ripping out the old cash booths and roadwork, the contractor is installing a continuous reinforced concrete roadway. Expansion joints are cut into the pavement for the expanding and contracting weather.

Vehicle detection systems are in the pavement and the toll collection equipment is tucked into tubes on the canopy overhead.

"We're the first to do ORT systemwide and statewide," Dailey said. "We have the highest I-PASS rates in the nation, with more than 75 percent total average during peak hours."

I-355 South Extension

As of midsummer, the project to lengthen Interstate 355 by 12.5 mi. to I-80 is moving at freeway speed, and construction of the 1.3-mi., six-lane Des Plaines Valley Bridge, one of the project's highlights, has begun.

The bridge is being built over the environmentally protected Des Plaines River Valley, and environmental concerns halted the project 10 years ago.

As part of a resolution between the Tollway, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the habitats in the Des Plaines River Valley will be protected and 35 acres of wetlands will be created.

Specifically, contractors are being careful not to disturb the habitat of the Hines Emerald Dragonfly.

"To protect their habitat, we took precautions not to impact their larva states where they burrow into the ground," said Tom Valaitis, senior project manager of Woodridge-based V3 Cos., the construction manager. "Their gestation period is five years long, so we can't excavate in the areas where there are burrowed holes.

"Some fenced off areas are literally underneath the bridge. The bridge was also designed to make sure it was tall enough so the flight of the dragonfly would be below the bottom of the bridge."

The bridge is a precast, post-tensioned, spliced-bulb-T, concrete-beam design.

"It's construction that's more typical in the Southwest and West Coast," Valaitis said.

"Bridge beams are fabricated offsite, trucked to the site and erected on piers and temporary shoring towers."

The beams are spliced together and steel strands are slipped through the beams and post-tensioned to make the beam continuous from pier to pier. The temporary shoring towers are removed before the deck is cast and additional post-tensioning is done on the beams before the bridge is opened to traffic.

The bridge rises about 80 ft. to 100 ft. above the Des Plaines River Valley and has 34 piers with four columns per pier. The 35 spans range in length from 145 to 275 ft. The $125 million bridge contract is constructed using the design-build method, which saved $8 million.

The $730 million project consists of 16 construction contracts. The extension includes interchanges at I-55 and I-80. Four other interchanges will service local roads. The new tollway is slated to open by the end of 2007.

The designs from the mid-90s were updated for new standards and analyzed for cost efficiencies. "Originally, the project had to spoil a couple million cu. yds. of dirt," the Tollway's Dailey said.

In the redesign, 9 million cu. yds. of earth was moved and used to build up the approach to bridges, raise the profile of the roadway about 10 ft. in one area and create berms for landscaping and sound control.

Higher anticipated traffic volumes also called for updating intersections to provide more vehicle capacity.

The new tollway is a 12-in.-thick, jointed-concrete pavement designed for 20 years. For 3 mi. it's a six-lane road, and for 9 mi. it's a four-lane road.

However, the entire strip can be easily expanded to six lanes by striping out the shoulders and putting in an asphalt shoulder. Dailey estimated the project is using 176,000 cu. yds. of concrete.

South Tri-State Reconstruction

Eight mi. of the 17.5-mi. reconstruction of the South Tri-State Tollway is under way. A new lane is being added in each direction.

To complete $275 million worth of work in a 20-month time period, the project kept running through the winter, said Michael Hannemann, vice president of Chicago-based McDonough Associates, the construction manager. "Major components - bridge decks and pavements - were performed in January," he added.

This first phase is slated to be complete by fall 2007.

"This portion of the Tollway has a tremendous amount of truck traffic, some of the highest counts in the country," Hannemann said.

He said maintaining three lanes of traffic required an extreme amount of crossover lanes and counterflow lanes.

The project also required a lot of rock removal because it crossed and was adjacent to the Thornton Quarry. "A lot of delicate blasting techniques were used by the contractor to remove rock to leave it in a stable state," Hannemann said.

For the project, 45,000 cu. yds. of concrete was used for the pavement, shoulders and ramps. The quarry bridge is being reconstructed 300 ft. above the quarry floor.

"It's a 30-year continuous-reinforced concrete pavement suitable for heavy truck traffic volume," Dailey said. "It should be 60 or 70 years until we have to reconstruct it again."

The Tollway opted for the design-build method for the noise walls, retaining walls and bridges. "We used a different project delivery method to expedite it and get it out on the street," Dailey said.

Phase two, which is 12 mi. of reconstruction of I-294 from I-80 to 95th Street, will include widening to four lanes in each direction. It is scheduled to start this year with a 2009 completion. However, costs have come in $100 million over estimates, which will require redesigning, repackaging and value engineering, Dailey said.

"Over the last three years, there's been a 30 percent increase in material costs," Dailey added. "Also, there's a saturation of the market. Contractors aren't as hungry for work, with the Dan Ryan reconstruction and the O'Hare Modernization and our own work."

The Tollway has $1.7 billion committed to spend over the next year and a half, with $1.4 billion of that just in construction work.

"We're scheduled to encumber another $1 billion in engineering and construction work," Daley said. "By the end of this year, about $2.4 billion will be encumbered out of the $5.3 billion Congestion-Relief Program."

Click here for Next Feature >>