T.Y. Lin International was selected by the City of Chicago, Department of Transportation to provide Design Engineering Services for the Reconstruction of the Interchange of Wacker Drive with Congress Parkway and a portion of the Wacker Drive Viaduct.
Wacker Drive is a two-way, two-level roadway that connects Congress Parkway (I-290) at the south/west end to Lake Shore Drive on the north/east end. The roadway structure is located within the City of Chicago, bounding the west and north sides of the Central Business District. The existing interchange and viaduct structures require complete replacement due to their poor condition. In addition, the existing interchange geometry has multiple operational issues, including the lack of merge lanes for traffic entering and exiting Wacker Drive from Congress Parkway.
The goals for the reconstruction of Wacker Drive include improving the functional operation of the Congress Parkway interchange and providing additional green space in the interchange area, reducing the number of exit and entrance points to/from lower Wacker Drive to reduce accidents, providing landscaped medians along the length of upper Wacker Drive, increasing the vertical clearance on the lower level, and improving the through route function of the lower level.
Reconstruction of the Congress Parkway interchange began in June 2010 and the viaduct reconstruction from Randolph Street to Van Buren Street began in January 2011. Completion of the reconstruction of Wacker Drive is scheduled for 2012.
Project Challenges
The magnitude of the interchange reconstruction has major impacts to area residents and businesses. Challenges for this project included:
- The construction of Wacker Drive is concurrent with two other adjacent major transportation projects.
- Development of an overall area traffic management plan taking into account the adjacent projects and their individual construction staging schedules.
- Relocation of all public and private utilities within the Wacker Drive project corridor.
- Extensive coordination with adjacent businesses, CTA bus re-routes, and multiple stakeholders