No garden of Edens
Welcome to the newest installment of the Daily Herald's ongoing In Transit column, offering weekly insights into everything that moves. I've spent the last decade reporting on the region and driving in Cook, DuPage, Will and McHenry counties. The worst was the Oak Park to Crystal Lake daily commute, although the Chicago to Elmhurst stint was a close second.
Lately, it's DuPage to Arlington Heights, a relative breeze.
My job as transportation writer doesn't mean I'm an expert, but it does give me a chance to talk to the experts to decipher baffling acronyms like TRACON (an air traffic control radar facility) or concepts such as CREATE, a plan to reduce rail congestion in the region.
Transportation is something we think about everyday, without realizing it. We've all stewed in traffic, or panicked sitting on the runway at O'Hare worried the flight might be canceled or wished Metra ran more trains when we needed them.
So please consider this your transportation forum and keep the e-mails and letters coming.
Not so open road
The worst of road construction 2008 is drawing to a close but I didn't want the summer to go by without checking out the nightmare that's supposed to be the Edens Expressway.
After all, I wondered, how bad can it be? As painful as the Dan Ryan project was? As confusing as the roller-coaster rebuilding of I-88 is now? As interminable as work on I-294 feels?
The Edens is a venerable landmark of Chicago highway infrastructure. Built of concrete in the 1970s, the Illinois Department of Transportation is paying for a new coating of asphalt at a cost of $43 million.
It's a Thursday, 6:07 p.m. with sunny skies when I pull onto the Kennedy at the Madison entrance ramp. I've decided to pretend I'm a CEO headed back to my Highland Park mansion although the 2000 Honda Civic hatchback could be a giveaway.
Merging into the crawling traffic, it's 8 minutes to Division Street and 18 minutes to Belmont with no relief in sight. And we're not even at the Edens yet.
6:37 p.m. Victory is mine. I'm on the Edens coasting at a whopping 10 mph.
6:40 p.m. Brief euphoria has passed and we're now snailing at a knuckle-whitening 15 mph.
6:42 p.m. Getting cranky. Nothing on the radio. I've traveled about 9 miles in 35 minutes. It's excruciating but 3 minutes later, something happens. Suddenly it's 35 mph.
I'm at the Caldwell exit - the West Touhy exit - the Niles Center exit and pushing 40 mph! At 6:50 p.m., I'm cruising (in a relative sense) as the BMWs and Hummers pass.
6:55 p.m. Creeping along.
If there's one thing that's consistent about this trip, it's the inconsistency of speeds. I transition from 15 mph at the Old Orchard exit to 30 mph at the Skokie River, just 2 minutes later.
Then it's up to 45 mph at Tower Road and before I know it, I'm exceeding the construction speed limit. I slow down but other cars rush past.
The clock reaches 7:05 p.m. as the Lake Cook Road exit nears and the Edens peters out. It took about 1 hour to get from downtown to the Chicago Botanic Garden and I'm ready to pull into my palatial estate and start yelling at the butler.
The good news, according to IDOT, is Edens work should wrap up by the end of September. All lanes will open by the end of August with the exception of some overnight patching, IDOT spokesman Mike Claffey said.
As a comparison, I drove on the Tri-State Tollway from Rosemont into Lake County, a section in the midst of a widening and reconstruction project.
This time it was morning rush hour and it took 20 minutes to travel 12 miles enlivened by clouds of dust.
I was late for an interview so it felt worse than the Edens saga but my average speed was a heady 36 mph.
On a scale of good to miserable, I'd rate both trips as a 7. But my tolerance level could be skewed by memories of the hideous Eisenhower rebuilding back in the 1990s in a car with no air-conditioning. It's all relative.
Got a local construction nightmare story? Send it along to mpyke@dailyherald.com and I'll list the best of the worst.
Incoming
• IDOT starts resurfacing work Monday on the following locations: Elgin O'Hare Expressway in Schaumburg; Golf Road and Route 58 in Des Plaines; Golf Road in Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates; Busse Road in Mount Prospect; Irving Park Road in Roselle; and Pfingsten Road in Glenview. And watch for lane closures at Route 20 and Shales Parkway as part of intersection improvements.
•Metra is offering extra trains during the Air and Water Show, which ends at 4 p.m. today. For information, check www.metrarail.com
•Are you among the minority that bikes to work in the suburbs? You have a week left to participate in a survey by the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation looking into commuting cyclists' experiences and needs. Deadline to complete is Friday. The survey is at www.biketraffic.org/commutersurvey.