CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- After years of delays and hundreds of millions in cost overruns, the state is celebrating the completion of the $800 million Jane Byrne Interchange project.
Jane Byrne’s daughter, Kathy, said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony, she had the unique pleasure of telling her mother, who was Chicago's first female mayor, before she died, “they’re not dedicating a highway ramp to you, it’s a really big thing.”
She wore a necklace that was her mother’s engraved with “One Chicago.”
"What the Jane Byrne Interchange does is it brings all of Chicago together-from the south, from the north, from the west and it makes us one Chicago."
Byrne died in 2014, a year after construction started.
Governor JB Pritzker and Transportation Secretary Omar Osman were among those at the event celebrating the completion of the 10 year project.
"We certainly tried to your patience navigating one of the most complicated works I can ever recall," said Osman addressing the audience.
"19 bridges, of which two were tri level flyovers and I'm told them we have a roomful of engineers," Pritzker said. "That's about the toughest thing you can manage- 50 retaining walls more than 32 miles of expressway lanes."
The completion date was essentially a moving target, largely because of the complexity of the project.
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