Kennedy Expressway
The John F. Kennedy Expressway is a nearly freeway in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The freeway runs in a southeast–northwest direction between the central city neighborhood of the West Loop and O'Hare International Airport and was named in memory of the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. It conforms to the Chicago-area term of using the word expressway for an Interstate Highway without tolls. The Interstate 90 portion of Chicago's Kennedy Expressway is a part of the much longer I-90. The Kennedy's official endpoints are the Circle Interchange with Interstate 290 and the Dan Ryan Expressway at the east end, and the O'Hare Airport terminals at the west end. Another road, the I-190 portion of the Kennedy, is long and serves airport traffic. I-90 picks up the Kennedy designation and runs a further, before joining with I-94 for the final.
Traveling eastbound from O'Hare, the Kennedy interchanges with the eastern terminus of the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway and with the Tri-State Tollway at a complex junction just west of Illinois Route 171. The Kennedy later merges with the southern end of the Edens Expressway at Montrose Avenue; the Kennedy then turns south to its junction with the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower Expressways and Ida B. Wells Drive at the Jane Byrne Interchange in downtown Chicago.
With up to 327,000 vehicles traveling on the Kennedy daily, the Kennedy and its South Side extension, the Dan Ryan, are the busiest roads in the Midwest.
History
The Kennedy was originally constructed along the route of Avondale Avenue, an existing diagonal street, and the northwest railroad corridor, in the late 1950s and completed on November 5, 1960. Originally named the Northwest Expressway for its general direction of travel, the Chicago City Council voted unanimously on November 29, 1963—one week after the assassination of President Kennedy—to rename the highway the John F. Kennedy Expressway. Until 1978, the Kennedy Expressway was marked as I-94 and Illinois Route 194, I-90 and I-190 replaced IL 194 and thus the Eisenhower Expressway was renamed from I-90 to I-290.The express portion of the freeway was last reconstructed from 1992 through 1994, when the existing express lanes, which previously were reversed by hand, were modernized. In addition, all aspects of the express lanes system were computerized, so that the process could be controlled at both ends from a central location. At least once a day, however, IDOT crews still examine the express lanes for debris while the lanes are closed.
In 2005, the Washington Street bridge over the expressway was reconstructed, and the entrance ramps to both directions of the Kennedy were partially removed. The same was done in 2006 for the Monroe Street bridge. This left a disconnected portion of each ramp remaining on the expressway, to be removed and the existing "suicide ramps" lengths extended when funding became available. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided the necessary funding for the construction between Hubbard Street and the Circle Interchange, commencing in summer 2009. The westbound ramps at Adams Street and Madison Street, along with the eastbound ramps at Randolph Street and Madison Street, were lengthened by removing what remained of abandoned ramps and lengthening the entrance ramps significantly. The only remaining short, limited-sight, left-side suicide ramp entrance is from Lake Street to the eastbound expressway. As part of the project, eastbound traffic patterns were adjusted. The two right-most lanes were made "exit only" for Chicago Loop, Ida B. Wells Drive, and Eisenhower Expressway exits, the Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard exits were combined, certain center median walls reconstructed, lanes restriped to remove the merging of the leftmost lanes, and appropriate signage changes. For example, the changes increased the taper for the Randolph Street entrance headed eastbound from, an increase of over 3.6 time. In the westbound direction, the exit ramp to Monroe Street was permanently removed.
In 2015, the American Highway Users Alliance named the of the Kennedy between the Circle Interchange and Edens junction the worst traffic bottleneck in the country.
Features
The Blue Line operates in the median of the Kennedy Expressway for about from O'Hare International Airport to just south of Addison Street. The first section, an extension from Logan Square to Jefferson Park, opened in 1970. The second section opened between Jefferson Park and River Road in February 1983. The third section between River Road and O'Hare was opened in September 1984.trains, such as the one seen here passing over the highway, to avoid the common congestion
The second distinct features of the Kennedy Expressway are its reversible express lanes where I-94 merges into I-90. The reversible lanes lie in the median of the highway from the Kennedy Expressway/Edens Expressway junction until just north of the Loop, a distance of about. These reversible lanes, situated between the inbound lanes and the Blue Line tracks, allow two lanes of traffic to flow towards or away from the city, depending on the time of the day. The lanes are controlled by computers and verified by humans at a separate control center. Steel mesh barriers and breakaway gates prevent traffic from entering oncoming lanes. On January 25, 2014, a drunk driver broke through the safety gates and drove in the express lanes in the wrong direction, but was stopped by a snow plow; no injuries were reported. This was the first wrong-way accident involving the express lanes.
A third distinct feature is Hubbard's Cave, also called the Hubbard Street Tunnel, a continuous set of bridges for a number of streets and railroads over the highway that forms a tunnel. It is named for Hubbard Street, one of the streets it passes underneath. Hubbard's Cave is a landmark frequently heard in traffic reports on radio and TV.
The final distinct features are the nine exits in between mile markers 50 and 51, and the southbound exit to I-290 and Ida B. Wells Drive is marked as exits 51H and 51I. While the density of interchanges is quite dangerous, the hazard is partially offset by the fact that exits are apart on the right hand side, while entrances to the highway were apart, but on the left side. Known as the "suicide ramps", the entrance ramps on the left had little to no acceleration zone, and traffic on the ramps could not see mainline traffic until the last of the ramp. The 2009–10 reconstruction between Hubbard Street and the Circle Interchange improved safety by increasing the lengths of most entrance ramps and reduced bottlenecks by better utilizing the existing space.
The Kennedy Expressway was the location of a large Magikist lips flashing sign which was a Chicago pop culture icon for many years. Located at the southeast corner where Montrose Avenue abutted the expressway, the sign was torn down in 2004.