Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

The Ashland Avenue 'Flyover' Bridge Project Slogs On, but End's in Sight

By Casey Cora | July 21, 2014 5:24am
 A South Ashland Avenue makeover removed a bridge that allowed drivers to "fly over" truck traffic headed to nearby factories. In the bridge's place will be new traffic lanes, widened sidewalks, and new lights and landscaping.
A South Ashland Avenue makeover removed a bridge that allowed drivers to "fly over" truck traffic headed to nearby factories. In the bridge's place will be new traffic lanes, widened sidewalks, and new lights and landscaping.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Casey Cora

MCKINLEY PARK — It might not make frustrated motorists and pedestrians feel any better now, but the city says the massive Ashland Avenue makeover is "moving along nicely."

The estimated $13 million project "is still on budget and on schedule," city Transportation spokesman Pete Scales said. The project, which began November 2013, is expected to wrap up in December.

Already, the hulking traffic ramp — built in the early 1960s so drivers could avoid the ground-level truck traffic headed to nearby factories — is history.

In its place will be a completely reconstructed road that will bring new traffic lanes, widened sidewalks, lights and landscaping to Ashland from 35th Street to just past Pershing Road.

The construction has meant new traffic patterns for Ashland's motorists, who are reduced to one lane of travel and often stuck behind the No. 9 CTA bus, which makes a few stops along the route.

South of Pershing Road, most of the work is already finished — new sidewalks, curbs and gutters and driveways have been installed in the outside curb lanes, Scales said. On Friday, work crews were prepping the middle lanes for a layer of new concrete.

Most of the major underground sewer and electrical work throughout the corridor is already completed.

Soon, crews will make their way north of Pershing Road to complete the work already started there, a punch list that includes the installation of light poles, new traffic signals, paving and restriping and landscaping.

The South Side area, home to the once-mighty Central Manufacturing District, is undergoing major changes, with many of the industrial warehouses vacant or in serious need of repair.

One of the corridor's large buildings burned to the ground in a spectacular January 2013 fire. The site is now a fenced-off, weedy lot.

Just up the street, another building, the old Wrigley gum factory at 35th Street, is half-demolished, and the land is likely destined for a strip mall anchored by big-box retail. 

Ald. George Cardenas (12th) has said the reconstruction is "necessary because the community and its needs have changed. ... [The flyover bridge] is obsolete, and reconstructing it entirely would require funds we do not have. By removing the bridge, we make the intersection and neighborhood friendlier to commerce."

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: