Joliet wants action on Jefferson St. bridge

Community leaders are calling for state action to ease the impact of a Jefferson Street bridge closure that now is expected to be 15 months.

At a news conference Friday, Mayor Bob O’Dekirk, joined by eight leaders with interests in downtown Joliet, said it was time to fix the ongoing problem of the city’s aging and often faulty drawbridges.

“We’re looking for solutions,” O’Dekirk said. “This issue has been kicked around for many, many years in Joliet.”

The news conference, called near the broken Jefferson Street bridge, pointed to many problems, but solutions were harder to come by.

The easiest answer proposed for now is converting the one-way westbound Cass Street bridge into a two-way route to compensate for the loss of the eastbound Jefferson Street bridge until it’s fixed.

But that seemingly simple solution faces stiff resistance from engineers at the Illinois Department of Transportation, who say it’s not as easy as it sounds. IDOT maintains the downtown drawbridges.

“It would require a lot more than signing and striping,” said Steve Travia, engineer of project implementation for IDOT.

Travia said the conversion of Cass Street into a two-way route already is part of an analysis being done for a future overhaul of that bridge. The work needed to meet current safety standards, including the reconfiguration of intersections, could not be done by October.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Larry Walsh Jr., D-Elwood, is pushing for the Cass Street conversion and met this week with Illinois Transportation Secretary Omar Osman.

“I’m going to have another conversation with the secretary early next week,” Walsh said. “He said he’s going to talk to his team about it.”

The news conference primarily was aimed at getting more attention to the issues Joliet faces when the downtown drawbridges are out of commission.

“As restrictions due to the pandemic ease, our downtown is ready to spring back to life,” said Megan Millen, chairwoman of the Joliet City Center Partnership.

But Millen and others said the closed Jefferson Street bridge will continue to restrict access to the downtown and its recovery.

“Losing this essential corridor to downtown Joliet for well over a year presents a tremendous challenge to businesses and residents,” said Doug Pryor, vice president for the Will County Center for Economic Development.

A couple of speakers portrayed the broken bridges as a disparity issue, separating the city’s less-affluent East Side from the more-affluent West Side.

“We stand before a physical reminder that the city of Joliet is disconnected,” Greg Peerbolte, executive director of the Joliet Area Historical Museum, said.

IDOT engineers said they are faced with the physical challenge of repairing 1930s-era bridges that often contain surprise problems once maintenance begins and require replacement parts that need to be custom made.

The Jefferson Street bridge was shut down in June for what was to be a two-month maintenance job. The reopening date was pushed back to April when new problems were found. This week, it was announced that the bridge won’t be fixed until October.

The latest issue is the discovery that an eight-foot shaft needs to be replaced. The custom fabrication of the replacement shaft is expected to take four months.

In the meantime, Joliet hopes to change IDOT views on the temporary solution proposed for Cass Street.