Six CTA bus routes will be detoured and six others will be restored to their regular routing Monday, August 27, when a new phase of the Wacker Drive Reconstruction Project begins. The changes will result from the closing of the Dearborn and Wells Street bridges and the reopening of the LaSalle Street bridge across the Chicago River.
The closing of the Dearborn Street bridge will detour the following routes northbound off Dearborn through mid-November:
#22 Clark via Washington, State and Kinzie back to Dearborn.
#24 Wentworth via Randolph, LaSalle and Lake to Clark, where buses will begin new trips southbound on Clark.
#36 Broadway via Washington to State, and continuing north on State.
#62 Archer via Lake to State, where buses will start new trips southbound on State, making their first stop at Washington.
The closing of the Wells Street bridge will detour the following rush-period routes southbound off Wells through mid-November:
#37 Sedgwick/Ogden via Kinzie, LaSalle and Madison back to Wells.
#125 Water Tower Express via Kinzie and LaSalle to Randolph and west on Randolph over the regular route.
For buses on both of these routes, the last stop north of the Chicago River will be southbound on Wells at Hubbard.
The reopening of the LaSalle Street bridge will allow the following buses to resume their regular routing across the river on LaSalle in both directions:
135 Wilson/LaSalle Express
#136 Sheridan/LaSalle Express
#156 LaSalle (local)
Also returning to LaSalle will be the following buses, which use LaSalle to make express trips to Navy Pier from Metra stations west of the Loop, but do not stop on LaSalle.
#120 North Western/Wacker Express
#121 Union/Wacker Express
#124 Navy Pier Express
With the reopening of LaSalle at Wacker, bus stop changes will be made on LaSalle to speed the movement of buses downtown and avoid traffic backups at intersections where right turns are permitted.
South of Grand, southbound buses will stop mid-block between Hubbard and Kinzie, mid-block between Wacker and Lake, on the far side at both Randolph and Madison, and just before the buses turn west at Adams. Southbound stops at Washington and Monroe will be eliminated since the new stops at Randolph and Madison would be at the other end of the same block.
Northbound buses on LaSalle will stop before the intersections at Adams and Madison, on the far side at Washington, and mid-block between Lake and Wacker. The first stops north of the river will be mid-block between Kinzie and Hubbard and just before the intersection at Illinois. Northbound stops at Quincy, Monroe and Randolph will be eliminated. Quincy is ? block south of the new stop at Adams. The existing stop at Monroe is in the lane used by right-turning traffic.
Randolph is at the end of the same block where the new Washington stop will be established.
Other bus routes that were detoured earlier by the Wacker Drive project will continue to operate over their existing detoured routing.
For further information call 836-7000 (all local area codes).
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