Yesterday I went to drop something off at a friend’s house only to find that Van Buren Street was closed due to construction on Wacker Drive. I had seen the construction around the city but hadn’t paid too much attention to it since it had yet to impede my travel (before yesterday that is). It turns out that this construction is all part of the second phase of Revive Wacker, a massive repair project to fix the North-South section of both Upper and Lower Wacker drive. The East-West section was repaired during phase one of Revive Wacker, which was completed in 2002.
What I didn’t know was that Wacker drive is the only street in Chicago with addresses on all four directions. It is also the only street in the city to cross Madison Street, which is the north-south center line of the city, and State Street, which is the east-west center of the city. This double decker roadway crosses through three of the four quadrants in the city. It’s been around since 1926 and has been added to and updated several times. This latest update will repair deteriorating viaducts, lifting the vertical clearance by more than a foot. Other modifications will also be made and by the end of the year, this unique roadway should be fully open to traffic once again.
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