New I-88 ramp set to open Friday

A new westbound on-ramp to the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway in Naperville will open Friday.

If all goes as planned, the entrance ramp from Warrenville Road near the Naperville-Wheaton border will open between noon and 3 p.m. Friday, tollway officials said. Uncooperative weather may push back that opening to Saturday, though.

Tollway spokeswoman Jan Kemp said westbound motorists on I-88 will be exiting at the new location in about two weeks as well.

Eventually the new interchange will provide relief at the Warrenville and Naperville roads intersection when a connector bridge is built that allows motorists to bypass that area.

"That will be done when the whole project is done at the end of the year," Kemp said.

Freedom Drive will connect Diehl Road on the south to Warrenville Road on the north. The road runs through a new commercial development called Freedom Commons in Naperville that is expected to compete with Warrenville's wildly successful Cantera commercial district.

The new interchange is part of a multimillion-dollar renovation and widening project along a 23-mile span of I-88 from Aurora to Oak Brook. All the work along that section of the thoroughfare is expected to be complete in 2009.