When he visits a restaurant and the food is cold and the waitress surly, Ron Laggos still pays the bill and leaves a tip.
That`s because, Laggos insists, ”I am not a complainer.”
But when it comes to road repair projects, don`t get him going.
He`s steamed. He`s exasperated. He`s had it up to here.
Sick of running into one traffic jam after another on one barricaded thoroughfare after another, Laggos wonders whether public officials and the multiplicity of agencies involved in road repairs make any effort to coordinate with one another.
Laggos is a salesman, and he spends more time on the road than most, but the questions he raises are muttered every summer by legions of angry drivers. If one major highway is torn up, they wonder, why do other routes that seem to be logical alternates go under the jackhammer at the same time?
If the Kennedy Expressway is being rebuilt, why has there been work on Clybourn and Elston Avenues?
”Like a lot of other people, I get frustrated,” Laggos said. ”I see the construction, and I wonder how much forethought went into it.”
The answer is that there`s usually discussion-and even some coordination- between county, municipal, state and tollway officials.
But there`s no guarantee that one suburb or agency knows about every project that another has in the works.
Critics point to this year`s work on two major north-south routes, the Kennedy Expressway and the Tri-State Tollway, as simultaneous construction jobs that don`t make sense.
But the big projects are the ones that are most widely known among the various road repair agencies, and they`re the ones that tend to get the most coordination.
In the case of the Kennedy and Tri-State jobs, officials insist they considered the impact of doing both at the same time, concluding that the highways serve mostly different groups of motorists.
A study by the Chicago Area Transportation Study estimated that vehicle hours of travel for drivers on the Tri-State and Kennedy combined would be only slightly higher (a total of about 104 million hours compared with about 102 million) over a six-year period under a scenario in which the projects go forward together as compared with one in which they are staggered.
And to have delayed the Kennedy until after the Tri-State project was completed would have been about $20 million a year more expensive because of construction-cost inflation, said Kirk Brown, Illinois transportation secretary.
IDOT representatives met with tollway officials ”dozens of times,” he said. ”We did nothing by accident.”
But coordination of the hundreds of smaller road projects done annually in the six-county Chicago area is more problematic.
Foolproof coordination is impossible in any case, given the number of projects that must be crammed into limited construction seasons, the long lead time that goes into engineering and planning of each, and the vagaries of project funding, officials say.
Even so, Ron Laggos and the throngs of motorists who share his frustration believe there has to be a better way.
Maybe it`s time to create a construction ”czar,” one public official with the power to order certain projects delayed when they conflict with others.
And once this protector of the beleaguered motorist relieves the dueling- project headache, maybe he could turn his attention to ridding the highway system of unnecessary lane closures and getting repair jobs completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. But that`s another story.
Getting Around Lake County
Though most Lake County communities have more downtown traffic than they want or need, Waukegan and North Chicago are doing their best to snare some more. The central business districts of both lakefront towns have been dying on the vine since the proliferation of suburban shopping centers began in the 1970s.
Officials have proposed the construction of a north/south expressway near the lakefront, with easy access to U.S. Highway 41 and the Tri-State Tollway, via Buckley Road, to bring cars and business back to their downtowns.
The proposal has gotten a boost recently from Barton-Aschman Associates Inc., a consultant hired to study the project. The firm`s premilinary report recommends the highway be built along the current path of Sheridan Road, just where North Chicago and Waukegan officials want it.
To speed traffic flow, the road would be widened, eliminating a number of houses and businesses on the west side of the street. The new highway also could take some of the traffic load off of other crowded north/south roads, including U.S. 41 and Illinois Highway 43.
But it could still be a long way off, warned Jeff Meyer, North Chicago`s director of community development. Once the highway`s route is agreed upon, there is still the little matter of getting funding from Springfield, Meyer noted. A pessimistic assessment: 10 years. Real pessmistic: not in our lifetimes.
If it seems traffic is flowing more smoothly because fewer highways are under construction in Lake County this summer, that`s because it`s true.
But the construction breather is more a matter of chance than planning. Schedules change, and some things take longer than expected to get started. This doesn`t mean, however, that there have been no construction-related headaches this year.
Work on busy Illinois Highway 60, between Deerpath Road and Illinois Highway 21, has slowed traffic and caused significant backups in the Vernon Hills area. The work there is winding down, and things should be back to normal soon, officials say.
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Got a commuting question? See a problem on the area`s roads, trains or buses? Getting Around will address topics of general interest. Write to Getting Around, c/o Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.
