The Chainlink

Does anyone remember when the Damen Avenue bridge was rebuilt/replaced in 1999-2000? This is the bridge over the North Branch Chicago River between Fullerton and Diversey.

My questions:
1. When it was opened, did it have 4 lanes?
2. When was it reconfigured to have 2 lanes and 2 bike lanes?
3. Why?

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To answer your original question about the North Damen Avenue Bridge I give you this excerpt from the forthcoming book Chicago River Bridges that will be published by the University of Illinois Press in October 2013.

"The new Damen Avenue Bridge, which opened in 1999, supports its suspended bridge deck with striking twin arches. This unique bridge replaced a sixty-nine-year-old single-leaf Chicago-type bascule. The revolutionary design was a first for Chicago when built. In 2005 traffic was reduced from four to two lanes so that bike lanes could be added on each side of the roadway. In July 2011, in much need of some attention, the bridge received a fresh coat of light-gray paint to cover its former iconic Chicago Bulls–red paint job."

Cheers,

Patrick

A little OT, but for anyone interested in the history of Chicago drawbridges in general, the OP was part of a team that made the film entitled "Chicago Drawbridges".  It is not from the road perspective, but from the water perspective and is fascinating.  It was shown on public television, and is available as a DVD.

I don't know the producers, but I have the DVD!

The initial reason that I dimly remember about why it didn't have bike lanes to start with was that it was an IDOT project. IDOT apparently required bridges to be built with implausibly high 50-year traffic projections in mind, which meant that all underpasses and overpasses were always striped with four lanes even when that created a reverse bottleneck situation. Sometime around 2004ish, suddenly something changed w.r.t IDOT and numerous bridges (also including Milwaukee over 90/94) got bike lanes.

And Steven, you do realize that CDOT probably has some kind of history of the bike lanes they've installed? Plenty of us "old hands" are also around for specific examples. The bike lanes on, off, and on N. Halsted was particularly instructive, and probably covered in the Reader's archives.

The 2002 WP bike fest was celebrating bike lanes on Damen past Wicker Park, which were the first within the neighborhood. Before that, lanes were only on Elston.

Unfortunately, as laid out in this thread, that information is inaccurate.  The changes were made in early fall of 2004.

Patrick McBriarty said:

To answer your original question about the North Damen Avenue Bridge I give you this excerpt from the forthcoming book Chicago River Bridges that will be published by the University of Illinois Press in October 2013.

"The new Damen Avenue Bridge, which opened in 1999, supports its suspended bridge deck with striking twin arches. This unique bridge replaced a sixty-nine-year-old single-leaf Chicago-type bascule. The revolutionary design was a first for Chicago when built. In 2005 traffic was reduced from four to two lanes so that bike lanes could be added on each side of the roadway. In July 2011, in much need of some attention, the bridge received a fresh coat of light-gray paint to cover its former iconic Chicago Bulls–red paint job."

Cheers,

Patrick

Jennifer, don't know if you realize this is an old thread from 2011 that was bounced up-- this info probably contributed to that GRID piece. The North Ave bridge was being finished when this thread was started, hence my first response which now makes little sense without that context.

Jennifer on the lake said:

Blair Kamen mentioned the Damen bridge reconfig when the new Halsted bridge opened. I thought Grid did a piece on it?

I shot this photo in December, 1999 in the first winter after the bridge was built.  The original red paint was beautiful when it was new, but it faded too quickly.

I love the way the bridge looks like it's crossing some sort of vast expanse of mystery-matter (is it a body of water? A giant bottomless chiasm?) in the photos.

Anne Alt said:

I shot this photo in December, 1999 in the first winter after the bridge was built.  The original red paint was beautiful when it was new, but it faded too quickly.

:)  I remember it being a very cold night and appreciating a little warm-up at a neighborhood place after doing some shooting.

h' 1.0 said:

I love the way the bridge looks like it's crossing some sort of vast expanse of mystery-matter (is it a body of water? A giant bottomless chiasm?) in the photos.

Anne Alt said:

I shot this photo in December, 1999 in the first winter after the bridge was built.  The original red paint was beautiful when it was new, but it faded too quickly.

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