Those involved in the rebuilding and expansion of 5 mi. of the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway in suburban Chicago call the schedule their biggest bump in the road.

"The amount of work we have to do in the time we have available to us makes this particularly challenging," said Bill Jennings, senior project manager with the Walsh/K-Five Joint Venture, a Naperville-based enterprise of Chicago-based Walsh Construction of Illinois and Lemont-based K-Five Construction, the managing partner.

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"On a scale of one to 10, I'm calling it a nine. It's been for certain applications an around-the-clock construction schedule."

Efficient coordination of activities has been important.

The project, with a construction budget of nearly $50 million, involves the reconstruction and expansion of the tollway from Naperville Road on the east to Route 59 on the west, Jennings said. No land acquisitions were required, because the tollway owned the land. Improvements are from right-of-way to right-of way. The westbound lanes will be reconstructed and expanded this year, the eastbound lanes next year.

Work began in June - when the thoroughfare was also renamed immediately after the death of the 40th president - and is slated for completion in August.
This stretch of the tollway has had three lanes in either direction. In addition to rebuilding the existing lanes, a fourth lane in each direction will be added to the outside of the tollway. The fourth lane will be striped as a concrete shoulder.

Permanent shoulders will be built within two years, and the fourth lane will then open as a through lane, Jennings said. That work will be subsequent to the Walsh/K-Five Joint Venture contract.

"We're reconstructing everything out there," Jennings added. "Permanent shoulders will be the median both eastbound and westbound. We're widening and increasing the capacity of the Route 59 exit ramp westbound and adding two lanes at that exit ramp. There are acceleration and deceleration lanes associated with that ramp."

Removing a Bottleneck

That ramp has been a traffic bottleneck.

The portion of roadway undergoing rebuilding and expansion is part of the original Illinois Tollway, constructed in 1958, said Joelle McGinnis, spokeswoman for the Downers Grove-based Illinois State Toll Highway Authority.

While the roadway has received overlays during the intervening 46 years, the base pavement beneath is nearly a half-century old.

"The road has well served its useful purpose, and it's time to reconstruct," McGinnis said.

Part of the problem with this particular stretch has been one of those overlays, which gave the roadway a reputation for "road chatter," a term for the sound traffic makes as it moves over the road at high speed, Jennings said.

"It's had a washboard effect for years," he added. "In the early 1980s, an experimental pavement was used. It was a concrete overlay of the existing concrete pavement, and it's our opinion that that particular concrete had minimal steel in it."

As a result, slabs curled, creating vertical displacements at the joints. When cars traveled over the road at 65 mph, they hit the joints so fast it sounded like a rumble strip.

"It's funny: A lot of people have pulled over on that stretch, thinking they have a flat tire," Jennings said. "That's the reason it's being rebuilt completely."

Recycling Materials

Recycled material is being used whenever possible on the project. For instance, the old pavement removed from the tollway was brought to an offsite crusher, crumbled into an aggregate product that meets tollway specifications and re-used as the aggregate subbase for the new pavement.

That subbase is 6 in. thick and is covered by 4 in. of Superpave bituminous base course, a kind of asphalt. Over that asphalt is laid 12 in. of continually reinforced concrete pavement, or CRC.

"That's a new pavement design for the tollway," Jennings said. "It's typical for interstate highways and is used by the Illinois Department of Transportation, but it's new to the tollway."

Meeting Traffic Needs

Prestage work resurfaced existing asphalt shoulders to create two additional lanes that could accommodate reconfigured traffic.

"We also had to install temporary crossovers at either end of the work, relocating westbound traffic into the eastbound lanes," Jennings said. "We even utilize one counterflow lane, which is a dedicated express lane with concrete barriers on either side."

The counterflow lane is not reversible. It remains a westbound lane at all times but doesn't permit motorists access to exits at Winfield Road or Route 59, which is why it's called an express lane.

Once motorists enter the lane just west of Naperville Road, their next available exit is Farnsworth Road. "Because they wanted to maintain three lanes in each direction, one lane has to go south of the existing center barrier wall," Jennings said.

"Once you're in that lane, you're there from one end of the project to the other. The ultimate result is originally there were three lanes in either direction, and the tollway is still maintaining that during construction. There's been no traffic capacity lost."

The Illinois Tollway is using a number of avenues to keep motorists up to date on the work, McGinnis said.

For those actually on the road, signs explain the scope of the project, why it is being undertaken and the duration of the work. "We also thank our customers for their patience and provide an 800 number so if they have questions or comments, they can share those with us," McGinnis added.

"Those are the static signs out there. We have portable, changeable electric message signs as well, so if there's a change in the project that's upcoming, we can notify our customers in advance." Safety of workers has been ensured through the use of temporary barriers, Jennings said.

By the time construction is complete, more than 300,000 lin. ft. of moveable concrete barrier wall will be used to safeguard the construction zone and construction workers. "Also during particular lane closures where we close lanes and work in traffic, we request state police presence, which is a deterrent to excessive speeds," Jennings said.

McGinnis added, "And we think the increased customer communications - that heightened understanding - helps raise the level of safety for everyone."