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Editorial: A bridge too low and the lessons learned

Which force is stronger: A lot of orange signs warning of a low overpass or the certainty that if your 18-wheeler fit under the bridge one day, it'll fit under it the next? Illinois Department of Transportation planners unfortunately bet on the orange signs -- even though local officials warned the agency it might not be enough.

"None of us felt real confident," Bensenville Assistant Village Manager Dan Di Santo said.

It wasn't one semi truck that hit the new railroad overpass on Irving Park Road near O'Hare, it was at least 15. In the first 24 hours.

The road now is closed completely for four months, choking off a major access point to the airport and worrying local small-business owners who risk ruin without vehicle traffic.

A lot of finger- and tongue-wagging followed the road closure last week, mostly focusing on the folly of IDOT building a new bridge that's temporarily a foot too short for standard truck trailers.

We're not jumping on that bandwagon, since the complexity of the road project is beyond the skill set of most everyday pundits.

But there's a strong lesson about how the power of human habit and the belief that the bridge is high enough can overrule any indication to the contrary. IDOT should have planned for that human response, and must do so in future road projects.

Here's what happened: IDOT built the overpass to move Canadian Pacific and Metra trains over the busy road, getting rid of an at-grade crossing plagued by train blockages. As spring approached, the bridge looked largely complete, but it was resting on temporary piers and big trucks could pass underneath. Then one weekend, the bridge was placed on its permanent piers and the 12-foot, 6-inch clearance no longer was high enough for semitrailers. IDOT posted many signs warning that trucks couldn't get through.

The next step is placing tracks on top of the overpass, removing the at-grade tracks and lowering the road, once again making room under the bridge for trucks.

We don't mean to give a pass to the truckers who ran into the bridge and closed the road for everyone, but the number of bridge collisions shows the blame goes beyond careless drivers.

Could IDOT have made the bridge taller to begin with, so even the temporary height would have been sufficient for trucks? We'll trust that a host of issues from higher cost to the appropriate incline for trains ruled that out. Could the time gap between finishing the overpass and lowering the road have been shortened? Four months seems long.

If the starting assumption was that big orange signs would not necessarily deter drivers, would the project have been approached differently from the beginning?

That's the important question, and one we hope IDOT will ask next time.

Railroad bridge will free choked intersection near O’Hare

15 trucks hit new railroad bridge in Bensenville

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