Hillside Strangler:

Hillside Strangler

An outsider might think that Chicago’s Hillside Strangler was some part of the city’s ghoulish history. A serial killer from the days of Prohibition perhaps, who had a ‘thing’ about drinkers, and preyed on drunks and left their strangled bodies on a particular hillside? But a Chicagoan will tell you it is far worse than that, that the Hillside Strangler is alive and well, still very much at large, and strangling more victims than ever. This ghoulish name describes one of the area’s interchanges most notorious for congestion, that over the years has, they’ll tell you, added far more to the aggregate of humanity’s anguish, wasted time, lateness, pain, rage, ill-humor and despair than any mere murderer of old. And is far more difficult to put away. Located on the Cook/Dupage county line 20km (14mi) due west of the Loop, ten minutes south of O’Hare airport, in the area called Hillside the IC they’ve dubbed the Strangler is a mixer with 5-motorway legs (I-290/I-294/I-88) plus numerous local ramps, with a railroad line going through the middle. Three of the major legs are tollway. It’s where the old Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) heading west out of the Loop breaks to the northwest and simultaneously meets the north-south Tri-State Tollway (I-294) and the beginning of the East-West Tollway (I-88). The lane drops and merges and inadequate ramps and backups from this and that all manage to strangle the traffic. One of Gov George Ryan’s most popular measures since he has become governor is his promise to fund a fix to put the Hillside Strangler away at last.

The Gov announced the project would be done on “fast-track” to be designed and completed by the end of 2001. Actually it’s a relatively modest project at $72m – auxiliary and collector/distributor lanes, ramp rearrangements, widenings/reconstructs of approach arterials and intersections. The Gov’s announcement puts reduction in time from the tollways onto the Eisenhower at 3 to 4mins with the new system vs 20mins now. The staff don’t want to cast doubt on the wisdom of the project as an incremental improvement but say a far bigger rebuild of the major mwy-mwy movements will be needed in the 5 to 10 year timeframe, if the Strangler is not rise again at Hillside. (Contact IDOT 312 793 3486)