Related Links: Chicago DOT Replaces Wells Street Bridge Section in Tight Time Frame Chicago's Red Line Is Getting a $1B, Three-Year Makeover The city of Chicago is launching a $492-million, four-year program to overhaul a mass-transit line that extends between downtown and O'Hare International Airport.Beginning in 2014, the Chicago Transit Authority's (CTA) Blue Line will undergo extensive track improvements, in addition to signal, power and station-house upgrades. Rather than complete track replacement, plans call for renovations along the 12.5-mile line, which includes subway tunnels, elevated structures and ground-level track.Though schedules aren't final, CTA expects to begin with track work, followed
A planned privately funded tollway linking Illinois and Indiana cleared a key hurdle Thursday when a regional planning board in Indiana approved the project following months of debate. A similar board in Illinois approved the project in October. Next step for Illinois and Indiana Departments of Transportation (IDOT, INDOT) is to secure federal approval for the $1.5-billion “Illiana” Expressway, a 47-mile corridor that would connect I-65 in northwest Indiana to I-57 and I-55 in northeast Illinois, about 58 miles south of Chicago.If built, Illiana would be the first project of its kind in Illinois financed under a public-private partnership. As
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday urged baseball's Chicago Cubs to begin work on a $500-million overhaul of Wrigley Field the city approved last summer. “They need to get started,” Emanuel told reporters. “The city has lived up to everything it said it was going to do in a timely fashion...and I expect them and other invested interests to resolve their issues so the whole city can benefit.”Since July, Cubs management repeatedly has expressed reluctance to proceed with the project until it has resolved complaints that renovations would block views of neighborhood rooftop owners, who have contracted with Cubs to
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Libertyville, Ill.-based Aldridge Electric Inc. for one serious safety violation following the June death of a worker who developed heat stroke at a job site in Chicago. Aldridge was installing electrical conduit in a trench on a mass-transit line when the worker became ill on his first day on the job. The worker was carrying heavy piping in unshaded conditions when he collapsed. He died the following day.“This tragedy underscores the need for employers to ensure new workers become acclimated and build a tolerance to working in
The City of Chicago is undertaking a $492-million, four-year program to overhaul a mass-transit line extending between downtown and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Beginning in mid-2014, the Chicago Transit Authority's (CTA) Blue Line will undergo track and infrastructure improvements, in addition to signal, power and station house upgrades. Rather than complete track replacement, plans call for a series of track improvements along the 12.5-mile line, which consists of subway tunnels, elevated structures and ground-level track along I-90, an expressway linking O'Hare to downtown.Unlike recent renovations to a line extending between downtown and Chicago's South Side, the Blue Line will remain
Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin continued to see improving construction employment conditions in October while Illinois, Indiana and Ohio suffered setbacks during the same period, according to year-over-year comparisons compiled by Arlington, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Indiana lost the greatest number of jobs (-11,800, -9.5%) in the nation in October, both in raw numbers and on a percentage basis. Neighboring Ohio lost 1,100 jobs (-0.6). For months, both states have endured job losses due to slackening global demand for manufactured goods, according to industry economists.After several months of stabilization, construction employment dipped precipitously in Illinois (-4.500 jobs, -2.4%),
A civil jury on Thursday assigned the majority of blame to manufacturer Advanced Cast Stone (ACS) for the June 2010 collapse of a concrete panel that killed one and injured two others at a Milwaukee parking structure. The jury also ruled that Random Lake, Wis.-based ACS intentionally concealed and misrepresented a defect or deficiency in its installation of the panel to the O'Donnell Park structure, owned by the County of Milwaukee. During the trial, ACS indicated it received approval to employ an alternative method to install the 30-ft, 13-ton panel to the structure's facade. It also maintained that something must
Midwest Construction backlogs declined by 11.7%, from 6.97 months to 6.15 months, in the third quarter of 2013, according to year-over-year data compiled by Arlington, Va.-based Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). The period also marked the fourth consecutive quarter of declining backlogs for the region, a trend ABC attributes to softening activity in the industrial sector. Nevertheless, construction momentum is becoming increasingly divergent in U.S. regions, the Midwest included, according to ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “The middle states continue to be associated with the shortest average backlog at 6.15 months, even though construction activity has been robust in North
The newly renovated Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Cat Canyon is the venue's seventh facility and first animal exhibit to receive LEED-Gold certification, furthering the zoo's quest to become the most sustainable facility of its kind in the U.S.
Scaling of the 13-story, 532-room Hilton Columbus Convention Center Hotel not only responds to pedestrians but also nearby low-rise vintage structures and taller glass and steel-clad buildings that serve as a backdrop for the hotel.