CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Don’t be surprised if you see unusually long concrete beams being trucked along the Jane Addams and Tri-State tollways and slowing traffic for the next few weeks starting Monday.
The concrete beams are being trucked from a Wisconsin manufacturing plant and will be part of the new southbound Mile Long Bridge.
Sixty-five beams will be moved between 4 a.m. and noon along I-90 and I-294, the Jane Addams and Tri-State tollways. They’ll be moving anywhere from 10-15 miles an hour on bridges and up to 40 miles an hour elsewhere.
"They each weigh 115 tons, so they’re massive. They’re between 72 inches and 90 inches tall and 111 feet and 187 feet long," said Illinois Tollway Acting Chief Engineering Officer Manar Nashif.
The beams will be moved on specialized trucks that are 10-feet wide and feature rear-steering capabilities. They will be escorted by Illinois State Police.
Altogether 250 concrete beams will be delivered to the site for the new southbound Mile Long Bridge Project. In addition, 165 steel beam segments also will be delivered from a fabrication site in Kentucky during the course of the project and used to form 52 steel beams installed over the County Forest Preserve property and the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal. Each of the steel beam segments will measure between 86 and 120 inches tall and between 39 and 234 feet long.
The Mile Long Bridge Project includes building two, new side-by-side 4,800-foot-long bridge structures designed to last 100 years and increasing capacity to five lanes in each direction. The original bridge structures were built in 1958. Delivery of new concrete and steel beams for the $500 million Mile Long Bridge Project is anticipated to continue through early 2022.
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