I-88 exchange nice, but reminder of rocky roads

I was so darned excited about the opening of I-355 on Christmas Eve, 1989 that I found the flimsiest of excuses to drive to the Daily Herald offices in Arlington Heights that day, a company holiday. My hourlong, or worse, commute from Naperville was a 35-minute breeze.

There was much hoopla and fanfare over that long-awaited opening. The tollway authority, in a rare gesture, let drivers traverse I-355 free of charge for the first two days.

With a total absence of hoopla and fanfare, the long-awaited completion of another tollway project, the revamped I-88/Naperville-Wheaton Road interchange took place yesterday.

Truthfully, there's no way there could be much hoopla. In terms of what actually occurred, motorists for the first time could drive under the tollway on Freedom Drive, which connects Warrenville and Diehl roads. Also, eastbound tollway drivers can exit at Naperville Road and use Freedom Drive to more quickly access northbound Naperville-Wheaton Road.

Still, I was so darned semi-excited about this $100 million project reaching the end, I had to get a firsthand look. So, during my lunch break I drove under the tollway on Freedom Drive.

In less than a minute, my journey was over.

The anti-climaticness of it all reminded me of the reason this project got everyone's attention more than a decade ago.

Back then, we were riding a wave of .com and telecommunications prosperity. And one of the hottest companies was Lucent Technologies. In anticipation of hiring another 2,000 workers, Lucent started construction on two new buildings, including a $250 million edifice with an enormous faux satellite dish on Warrenville Road.

The intersection of Warrenville and Naperville-Wheaton roads already was one of the busiest in DuPage, and with all the projected Lucent growth, it seemed a slam dunk to work the intersection improvements into the $826 million overhaul of the 50-year-old I-88.

And hardly a day goes by that I don't appreciate the new improved Warrenville Road, as I'm sure do motorists who have just seen the end to the widening of Naperville Road, south of Warrenville Road. But all that expected Lucent traffic went the way of the Crosstown Expressway, a long-discussed Chicago project that, when scuttled, provided the funding for I-355.

Today, the building with the enormous satellite dish sits vacant, looking for a buyer. The once-mighty Lucent merged with a French-based company, and became Alcatel-Lucent. There are more than 3,000 workers at other nearby offices, but that's down from Lucent's peak of about 10,500 employees during its heyday.

Come to think of it, Lucent isn't the only company in the I-88 corridor to encounter a speed bump in recent years. Tellabs, Molex and BP all have struggled with layoffs. The Daily Herald is not immune. Our office on Warrenville Road, right across the street from the vacant Lucent building, has fewer employees today than just a year ago.

So that hassle-free trip along Warrenville Road each day does come with a price.

But I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. I have to believe we'll pull out off this horrible slump, and business will thrive again. So here's to Lucent, Tellabs, Molex, BP and the Daily Herald.

The good roads are here; we just need to get more cars on them.

jdavis@dailyherald.com