Miles SmithFederal grants totaling $305.5 million are providing Illinois with funding to invest in projects designed to improve the safety and efficiency of major highways and rail lines that serve the Chicago area and its residents.
The Illinois Department of Transportation is being awarded a pair of grants through the U.S. Department of Transportation Mega Program to make improvements to I-290 and provide funding to continue the Transportation Efficiency Program’s 75th Street Corridor Improvement Project.
The 75th Street Corridor Improvement Project is the largest project in the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program.
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The project is in the Chicago neighborhoods of Ashburn, Englewood, Auburn Gresham and West Chatham along two passenger and four freight rail lines. It involves untangling the railroad tracks from the roadways so that trains, pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles can more easily move through the community.
The federal grant funding includes:
- $209.9 million to rebuild track infrastructure, add tracks, and fix or replace 14 aging bridges and viaducts as well as implement mobility improvements on local surface streets. The investment will help further one of the largest elements of the CREATE program, which includes Cook County, the city of Chicago and freight and passenger railroads as partners. The grant is the biggest in the history of the CREATE program, IDOT said.
- $95.6 million to reconstruct portions of I-290, including upgrading the First Avenue interchange and adding signalized interchanges at Van Buren Street and Maybook Drive. Additional project elements include sanitary sewer upgrades along the expressway corridor.
Photo by Connor Betts on Unsplash
