Kennedy express lanes to reopen early next year after delays

The reversible lanes of the Kennedy Expressway are scheduled to reopen in mid-January after 10 months of construction and delays that saw the overhaul stretch beyond the planned opening in late fall.

The express lanes stretching from Ohio Street to the Edens junction, which have been closed since March, are set to reopen the week of Jan. 13, the Illinois Department of Transportation announced Tuesday.

That’s the plan — as long as testing set to begin Jan. 2 goes well, officials said.

Crews are nearing the end of the second year of construction of a three-year overhaul of the entire Kennedy Expressway. The inbound Kennedy reconstruction was finished in 2023. Construction of the outbound lanes starts in the spring and should take “one full construction season to complete,” officials said.

The state transportation department initially planned to open the reversible lanes in the “late fall” but fell behind schedule. Officials acknowledged the delay in a statement announcing the planned completion date of the reversible lanes, called the Reversible Lane Access Control system.

“Due to the complexity of the overall Reversible Lane Access Control system, additional time is needed to ensure the safety components are fully integrated and their functions operating seamlessly before testing can begin and the reversible lanes reopen to the public,” the transportation department wrote in a news release.

The express lane rehab included installing new control gates, replacing multiple cameras and modernizing electrical components, according to the transportation department. Crews also installed new overhead signs and updated Hubbard’s Cave with new paint and LED lights.

Officials said the last major rehab of the Kennedy’s express lanes was in 1996, when they replaced a system first built in the 1960s. More than 275,000 motorists use the expressway every day.