Damen Avenue bridge history

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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Permalink Reply by Duppie on November 3, 2010 at 12:00pm
Here is a rendering of what ithis reconfiguration would look like



Steven Vance said:


Davo said:
My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs

CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Permalink Reply by J M on November 3, 2010 at 1:17pm
It looks like the re-route goes directly through the current location of the Vienna Beef factory. However it is hard to tell from that rendering if that particular section is street level or raised.
Has anyone ever noticed how on the Damen Ave bridge over there, most of the metal is painted Hot Dog red? ;-)


Duppie said:
Here is a rendering of what ithis reconfiguration would look like



Steven Vance said:


Davo said:
My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs

CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on November 3, 2010 at 1:36pm
I have mixed feelings about this idea. On the positive side, it appears that is should make the intersection much safer. On the negative side, the bridge won't be nearly as nice to ride. *sigh*

J M said:
It looks like the re-route goes directly through the current location of the Vienna Beef factory. However it is hard to tell from that rendering if that particular section is street level or raised.
Has anyone ever noticed how on the Damen Ave bridge over there, most of the metal is painted Hot Dog red? ;-)


Duppie said:
Here is a rendering of what ithis reconfiguration would look like



Steven Vance said:


Davo said:
My pipe dream is for the Damen Elston Fullerton intersection to be a round about. Carns always blosk up the lanes there and have no where to go when the light changes. I cant count the number of times that I have had to weave through that bs

CDOT has a plan for this intersection. The plan is to remove Elston from the intersection and have Elston go around it at a right angle hundreds of feet away. It's a difficult plan because the City will have to buy others' property.
Permalink Reply by djm on November 5, 2010 at 6:41pm
Yes, the new bridge was originally marked with four lanes and no shoulders. If traffic was heavy, taking the sidewalk across was a better bet although there was often a fair amount of broken glass to be found there.
Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on November 5, 2010 at 8:16pm
Here's an outtake paragraph, from my story on road diets, about the Damen bridge.
I got the date from CDOT.

"Chicago has successfully implemented road diets before, like the 2004 conversion of the Damen Avenue bridge between Fullerton and Diversey. The Chicago Department of Transportation removed two of the four travel lanes and striped a median and bike lanes on the bridge, which reduced speeding and made the bridge much more bike-friendly."

The bridge originally opened in 1999.

- John Greenfield
Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on November 5, 2010 at 8:28pm
This is great information.


John Greenfield said:
Here's an outtake paragraph, from my story on road diets, about the Damen bridge.
I got the date from CDOT.

"Chicago has successfully implemented road diets before, like the 2004 conversion of the Damen Avenue bridge between Fullerton and Diversey. The Chicago Department of Transportation removed two of the four travel lanes and striped a median and bike lanes on the bridge, which reduced speeding and made the bridge much more bike-friendly."

The bridge originally opened in 1999.

- John Greenfield
Permalink Reply by Missy Hixon on November 6, 2010 at 11:10am
Actually the intersection re-configuration goes through Midtown Tennis Club not Vienna. No start date is set yet. Intersection is really a traffic maker. I don't think the bridge will change.
Permalink Reply by Steven Vance on March 8, 2011 at 10:03am

Thank you guys for all of your help.

 

I am trying to build a history of bikeway expansion (and contraction) in Chicago. Your contributions about the Damen Avenue bridge helped.

 

Bikeway History

 

You can contribute by emailing me personally or by leaving a comment here or on the Bikeway History page.

Permalink Reply by Patrick McBriarty on July 20, 2013 at 1:23am

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

Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on July 20, 2013 at 2:02am

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!

Permalink Reply by payton on July 20, 2013 at 8:06am

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.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on July 22, 2013 at 7:54am

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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