Eisenhower Expressway
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Interstate 290 (I-290) is an
auxiliary Interstate Highway Auxiliary Interstate Highways (also called three-digit Interstate Highways) are a supplemental subset of the freeways within the Interstate Highway System of the United States. Auxiliary routes are generally classified as spur routes, which con ...
that runs westward from the
Chicago Loop The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
. The portion of I-290 from
I-294 Interstate 294 (I-294) is a tolled auxiliary Interstate Highway in northeastern Illinois. It forms the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois. I-294 runs from South Holland at I-80/ I-94 and Illinois Route 394 (IL 394) to ...
to its east end is officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway. In short form, it is known as "the Ike" or the Eisenhower. Before being designated the Eisenhower Expressway, the highway was called the Congress Expressway because of the surface street that was located approximately in its path and onto which I-290 runs at its eastern terminus in the Loop. I-290 connects
I-90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...
(Jane Addams Memorial Tollway) in Rolling Meadows with I-90/ I-94 (John F. Kennedy Expressway/Dan Ryan Expressway) near the Loop. North of
I-355 Interstate 355 (I-355), also known as the Veterans Memorial Tollway, is an Interstate Highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. Like most other toll roads in the northeastern portion of th ...
, the freeway is sometimes known locally as
Illinois Route 53 Illinois Route 53 (IL 53) is an arterial north–south state highway in northeast Illinois. IL 53 runs from Main Street west of historic U.S. Route 66 (US 66) in Gardner to IL 83 in Long Grove, a distance of . It mainly ...
(IL 53), or simply Route 53, since IL 53 existed before I-290. However, it now merges with I-290 at Biesterfield Road. In total, I-290 is long.


Route description


Jane Addams Memorial Tollway to Veterans Memorial Tollway

This section is long and runs from Rolling Meadows to
Addison Addison may refer to: Places Canada * Addison, Ontario United States *Addison, Alabama *Addison, Illinois *Addison Street in Chicago, Illinois which runs by Wrigley Field * Addison, Kentucky *Addison, Maine *Addison, Michigan *Addison, New York ...
. It is the portion of I-290 more locally known as "Route 53". Here, I-290 runs largely above-grade through
Schaumburg Schaumburg is a district (''Landkreis'') of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (clockwise from the north) the districts of Nienburg, Hanover and Hamelin-Pyrmont, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (districts of Lippe and Minden-Lübbe ...
and
Elk Grove Village Elk Grove Village is a village in Cook and DuPage counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Per the 2020 census, the population was 32,812. Located northwest of Chicago along the Golden Corridor, the Village of Elk Grove Village was incorpora ...
and at- or below-grade through Itasca and
Addison Addison may refer to: Places Canada * Addison, Ontario United States *Addison, Alabama *Addison, Illinois *Addison Street in Chicago, Illinois which runs by Wrigley Field * Addison, Kentucky *Addison, Maine *Addison, Michigan *Addison, New York ...
. The northern of this highway were reconstructed in 2003–2004. A left shoulder and an auxiliary lane between ramps were added, as well as improved lighting. The highway is four lanes wide (not counting the auxiliary lane) north of IL 390 (milemarker 5) and five lanes wide with a wide left shoulder south to the exit to I-355. Between milemarkers 0 and 4, IL 53 overlaps this section of the Eisenhower Expressway.


Eisenhower Extension

This section is long and runs from Addison to Hillside. It took its name when the Eisenhower was extended northwest from Hillside. The highway runs largely at-grade or above-grade for this length. US Route 20 (US 20) overlaps I-290 around Elmhurst from milemarkers 12 to 13 and runs parallel to the rest of this section between milemarkers 7 and 18. This section of I-290 varies in width from two lanes at the ramp east from the I-290/I-355 split to three lanes between I-355 and US 20, to three lanes plus two exit lanes at US 20/ IL 64 (Lake Street/North Avenue; exit 13B). After exit 13B, the highway reverts to three through traffic lanes. Exit 15 to southbound I-294 is a frequent point of congestion due to ramp traffic backing up onto the mainline highway, often as long as . This is because the ramp is not isolated from the mainline, only one lane in width, is a low-speed ramp (marked as a ramp), and is relatively short () while carrying a high volume of truck traffic south to Indiana from North Avenue. Additionally, the sudden appearance of the exit tends to cause accidents when cars in the center lane try to aggressively turn into the right lane, particularly at the mouth of the I-294 exit. Finally, there is a dangerous high-volume weaving situation at the end of the ramp to I-294 with southbound I-294 traffic exiting to westbound
I-88 Interstate 88 may refer to either of two United States Interstate highways: * Interstate 88 (Illinois) Interstate 88 (I-88) is an Interstate Highway in the US state of Illinois that runs from an interchange with I-80 near Silvis and ...
. , there are no plans to overcome any of these problems with new construction. The western of this section are blacktop, while east of IL 83 (exit 10) the original concrete is still in place.


Tri-State Tollway to Austin Boulevard

This section of I-290 is long, and it runs from Hillside to the western border of Chicago. This section is sometimes referred to as the "Avenues". , it is the third-most-congested stretch of highway in the
Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
, behind the
Jane Byrne Interchange The Jane Byrne Interchange (until 2014, Circle Interchange) is a major freeway interchange near downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is the junction between the Dan Ryan, Kennedy and Eisenhower Expressways ( I-90/ I-94 and I-290), and Ida B. Well ...
area and the intersection of the
Dan Ryan Expressway The Dan Ryan Expressway is an expressway in Chicago that runs from the Circle Interchange with Interstate 290 (I-290) near Downtown Chicago through the South Side of the city. It is designated as both I-90 and I-94 south to 66th Street, ...
and
Chicago Skyway Interstate 90 (I-90) in the US state of Illinois runs roughly northwest-to-southeast through the northern part of the state. From the Wisconsin state line at South Beloit, it heads south to Rockford before heading east-southeast to the ...
. It is known for having a high volume of traffic on ramps through the Avenues, and high volumes of traffic on left-side ramps in Forest Park and Oak Park. I-290 runs above-grade west of Mannheim Road and at- or below-grade east of Mannheim Road. Eastbound at Mannheim Road (exit 17), the highway splits into two express and one local lane; they are joined by two onramps from I-88 and form express lanes three lanes wide and local lanes to Mannheim Road two lanes wide. After Mannheim Road, the highway immediately narrows to three lanes in width, causing mile-long () backups. It remains three lanes to Austin Boulevard. Westbound, I-290 merely is three lanes wide to Mannheim Road and then four lanes wide to the I-88/I-290 split. Exits at Harlem Avenue (exit 21B) and Austin Boulevard (exit 23) are
inverted single-point urban interchange A single-point urban interchange (SPUI, or ), also called a single-point interchange (SPI) or single-point diamond interchange (SPDI), is a type of highway interchange. The design was created in order to help move large volumes of traffic thro ...
s (inverted SPUIs), with left offramps and onramps. These cause backups as trucks switch lanes to exit and a large volume of traffic enters on the left side of the highway. In 2001–2002, this section between milemarkers 15 and 18 was reconstructed in the first phase of an attempt to untangle the "Hillside Strangler", adding the local lanes and extra onramp to I-290. The second phase, reconstruction of the highway between milemarkers 18 and 23 (Mannheim Road to Austin Boulevard), is still in the preliminary engineering phase of construction .


Austin Boulevard to Chicago Loop

The easternmost section of I-290 is long and runs entirely through the city of Chicago to the terminus at I-90/I-94. It runs below grade for its entire length. This highway is four lanes wide in both directions for its entire length, and most onramps and offramps are located just two blocks apart. Therefore, an exit in one direction may be marked one street (e.g., Laramie Avenue), while the same exit in the other direction may be marked another (e.g., Cicero Avenue), even though the streets are only a block apart. This configuration results in most exits on this portion of the road being marked as A/B exits. Eastbound congestion is lighter here than through the "Avenues", generally limited to congestion on the tight onramps to the Kennedy and Dan Ryan expressways (Jane Byrne Interchange) at the eastern terminus or blind onramps at Kostner and Homan avenues. Westbound, congestion is heavy starting at Laramie due to the left-hand exit at Austin (which combines a "perfect storm" of a four-down-to-three lane reduction, an unfamiliar left-hand exit, and entrance and in-merging traffic of the central onramp). Most afternoons, this bottleneck can skyrocket the "Post Office to Wolf (Road)" commute time to over an hour (up from 16 minutes with no traffic). The Eisenhower Expressway runs along blacktop pavement for the length of the section, except between Kostner Avenue and Independence Boulevard, where it runs on concrete pavement. The eastern terminus of I-290 is the Jane Byrne Interchange with I-90/I-94. After this junction, the route becomes elevated and continues as a highway until
LaSalle Street LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for Robert de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's financial district. Sout ...
, at which point it passes under
LaSalle Street Station LaSalle Street Station is a commuter rail terminal at 414 South LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago. First used as a rail terminal in 1852, it was a major intercity rail terminal for the New York Central Railroad until 1968, and for the Chicago, R ...
and comes out the other side as a city street ( Ida B. Wells Drive). The Ida B. Wells Drive route continues east until the street is stopped by
Buckingham Fountain Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago Landmark in the center of Grant Park, between Queen's Landing and Ida B. Wells Drive. Dedicated in 1927 and donated to the city by philanthropist Kate S. Buckingham, it is one of the largest fountains in the ...
. The Blue Line operates in the median of the Eisenhower from Halsted Street to
Cicero Avenue Cicero Avenue, also known as Skokie Boulevard in Skokie and Wilmette, is a major north-south street in Chicago and its suburbs in Cook and Will Counties. It carries Illinois Route 50 from its south end to Skokie, and U.S. Route 41 from Skokie ...
. After Cicero, the line leaves the median and runs on the south side of the Eisenhower for the remainder of its route to Des Plaines Avenue, Forest Park.


History

An expressway along the alignment of the Eisenhower Expressway was foreshadowed by
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
's
plan A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. F ...
of 1909, which described a west side
boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...
. The passageway under the Old Post Office was designed to preserve the
right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...
for the future road. The expressway is named for the former President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
, who signed the
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was enacted on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. With an original authorization of $25 billion for ...
and came up with the original concept for the
Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...
; it originally was called the Congress Expressway because it partially follows the route of Congress Parkway (portions now called Ida B. Wells Drive) in Chicago. The first segment, in length, opened from Mannheim Road to 1st Avenue in December 1955. On December 15, an additional was opened, from Ashland Avenue (1600 West) to Laramie Avenue (5200 West). During the 1960s and 1970s, the Eisenhower Expressway was extended to Lake Street and North Avenue in Elmhurst. In 1963, the first working example of
ramp meter A ramp meter, ramp signal, or metering light is a device, usually a basic traffic light or a two-section signal light (red and green only, no yellow) together with a signal controller, that regulates the flow of traffic entering freeways accordi ...
ing took place on the Eisenhower Expressway, based on successful metering through
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
tunnels and data from ramp closures in
Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
. The first implementation utilized a police officer at the top of an entrance ramp, stopping and releasing vehicles onto the highway at a predetermined rate. Another section opened in 1972, to a north–south expressway in
Addison, Illinois Addison is a village located in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 36,942 at the 2010 census. History The community itself was originally named Dunkley's Grove after the settler Hezekia ...
. At the time, this expressway was a short spur from the Eisenhower Expressway, and it was referred to as IL 53, which continued north to Schaumburg. Construction on IL 53 had finished in 1970. Until 1977, the Eisenhower Expressway was marked as a part of I-90. In 1978, the I-90 designation was moved onto the John F. Kennedy Expressway and the
Northwest Tollway Interstate 90 (I-90) in the US state of Illinois runs roughly northwest-to-southeast through the northern part of the state. From the Wisconsin state line at South Beloit, Illinois, South Beloit, it heads south to Rockford, Illinois, Rock ...
, replacing IL 194. The Eisenhower Expressway was then renumbered as I-290 and signage was updated in 1979. Because the segment from I-294 to IL 53 was built last, that portion of the highway is referred to as the Eisenhower Extension. The Eisenhower Expressway, extension included, is long. If the IL 53 portion of I-290 is added to that, the highway is long. In 2003–2004, the first of I-290 out of
Schaumburg Schaumburg is a district (''Landkreis'') of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (clockwise from the north) the districts of Nienburg, Hanover and Hamelin-Pyrmont, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (districts of Lippe and Minden-Lübbe ...
were rebuilt, replacing pavement that had well-exceeded its estimated 20-year lifetime. (The original pavement was built in stages from 1963 through 1970 as part of IL 53.) A fifth auxiliary lane was added between the entrance and exit ramps of exits 1, 4, and 5. The most important safety upgrade was the demolition of the raised grassy median between the westbound and eastbound lanes, and its replacement with a permanent concrete median and wide shoulders. * Hillside Strangler: Named after the Chicago suburb of Hillside, it refers to a major merge with
I-88 Interstate 88 may refer to either of two United States Interstate highways: * Interstate 88 (Illinois) Interstate 88 (I-88) is an Interstate Highway in the US state of Illinois that runs from an interchange with I-80 near Silvis and ...
, and almost always is used when referring to inbound (eastbound) traffic. It is at this point that I-88 terminates eastbound. It was called the Strangler because, before its reconstruction in the early 2000s, seven throughlanes were forced to merge to three, creating large backups. Reconstruction widened part of this area to nine lanes (five inbound; three through; two local; and four through outbound). This allowed direct exits to Mannheim Road ( US 12/ US 20/ US 45) from I-88, the ramp also serving for an I-88 truck access to eastbound I-290; created an inbound collector–distributor ramp for Mannheim Road; and added a timed gate that closed a ramp from Roosevelt Road ( IL 38) to inbound I-290 during the afternoon rush hours. These improvements helped congestion at the site, but they also pushed preexisting congestion further east to the six-lane portion of the highway. The Hillside Strangler is located at about milemarker 18. * The Avenues: The portion of the highway between Mannheim Road at milemarker 17 and First Avenue in Maywood, a stretch of . Named because all of the crossroads between these two exits are named numerically, in ascending order traveling outbound (westbound). 1st Avenue ( IL 171) is exit 20. There are exits to 9th, 17th, and 25th avenues to the west. These exits are spaced about apart. This stretch is notorious for being very congested. * Eisenhower Extension or 290 Extension: The of road between current-day milemarker 7 (
I-355 Interstate 355 (I-355), also known as the Veterans Memorial Tollway, is an Interstate Highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. Like most other toll roads in the northeastern portion of th ...
south to US 20/Lake Street) and North Avenue ( IL 64), milemarker 15. This section was built in the late 1970s. *
Jane Byrne Interchange The Jane Byrne Interchange (until 2014, Circle Interchange) is a major freeway interchange near downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is the junction between the Dan Ryan, Kennedy and Eisenhower Expressways ( I-90/ I-94 and I-290), and Ida B. Well ...
: The eastern terminus of I-290 where it meets I-90/I-94, which overlap through Chicago. North of this interchange I-90/I- 94 is called the Kennedy Expressway, while south of it I-90/I-94 is called the Dan Ryan Expressway. The interchange itself consists of eight heavily used, very tight ramps that wind around each other, giving the interchange a distinct circle shape when looked at from above. This design, adequate when first built in the 1950s, forces drivers to slow down to speeds of about due to its tightly wound curves. Not only does this led to the worst congestion in the Chicago area, a 2010 study of freight congestion (truck speed and travel time) by the
Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
ranked this section of the I-290 as having the worst congestion in the US; the average truck speed just . The interchange is currently being reworked with an estimated completion date.


Old Post Office

Just east of the I-290–I-90/I-94 junction in downtown Chicago, the
Old Chicago Main Post Office The Old Chicago Main Post Office is a nine-story-tall building in downtown Chicago. The original building was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White and built in 1921, but the structure was expanded greatly in 1932 in order to serve Chi ...
is a building that stretches over Ida B. Wells Drive. If one drives eastbound on I-290 and continues past I-90/I-94, the highway ends and becomes Ida B. Wells Drive. The Old Post Office was a landmark that was sometimes used in referring to the end of I-290 in downtown Chicago. For example, a traffic reporter might say "forty minutes from Mannheim to the Post Office". This large building was used by the
US Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...
(USPS) until 1996. The building itself was built from 1921 to 1933 in the
Art-Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the United ...
style, and it is in size. The building, built several decades before the expressway that passes through it, was originally designed to accommodate a roadway—requiring only minimal work to remove walls in the base for the freeway to pass through. In spite of its unused state, the building is still known to visitors and commuters alike as the unofficial gateway into the Loop area. In late August 2009, the USPS announced an auction was to be held to sell the facility to the highest bidder. The winning bid ($40 million quivalent to $ in was from an English real-estate developer, Bill Davies.


Exit list


References


External links


Kurumi's 3di page — I-290

Illinois Highway Ends: Interstate 290

Historic, Current & Average Travel Times For The Eisenhower Expressway

Official IDOT website
{{3di, 90 2 (Illinois) Expressways in the Chicago area 90-2 90-2 Illinois Transportation in Cook County, Illinois Transportation in DuPage County, Illinois