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Chatham Street Bridge

Cook County, Illinois
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Photos 

Photo taken by Steve Conro in September 2012

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Map 

Street View 

Description 

One of a pair of nearly identical bridges over the Cal Sag Channel in Blue Island. The other is at Division Street, and is in about the same bad condition. Nevertheless, even in its present condition the Chatham Street bridge still serves a need for pedestrians, to reach the Metra stations on the north side of the channel.

View Uglybridges.com report

Facts 

Overview
Polygonal Warren through truss bridge over Cal Sag Channel on Chatham Street in Blue Island
Location
Blue Island, Cook County, Illinois
Status
Open to pedestrians only. Closed to vehicular traffic
Future prospects
Available for reuse
History
Built 1964
Design
Through truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 303.7 ft.
Total length: 384.7 ft.
Deck width: 29.8 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 16.0 ft.
Approximate latitude, longitude
+41.65249, -87.67546   (decimal degrees)
41°39'09" N, 87°40'32" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
16/443756/4611414 (zone/easting/northing)
USGS topographic map
Blue Island
Inventory numbers
IL 016-6620 (Illinois bridge number)
BH 15109 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection (as of 08/2007)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Serious (3 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Serious (3 out of 9)
Appraisal: Structurally deficient
Sufficiency rating: 37.9 (out of 100)
Average daily traffic (as of 2000)
509

Categories 

Available for reuse (161)
Blue Island, Illinois (7)
Built 1964 (107)
Built during 1960s (1,230)
Cook County, Illinois (168)
Have street view (10,038)
Illinois (2,501)
Navigable waterway (1,453)
Open to pedestrians (1,959)
Owned by city (3,091)
 Polygonal Warren through truss (297)
Polygonal Warren truss (726)
Skewed (4,083)
Span length 250-500 feet (867)
Structurally deficient (16,730)
Through truss (9,256)
Total length 250-500 feet (3,383)
Truss (23,618)
Warren truss (3,959)

Update Log 

  • March 17, 2013: Updated by Roger Deschner: Bridge is still open to pedestrians. Add description.
  • September 26, 2012: New photos from Steve Conro
  • November 22, 2011: Updated by Frank Hicks: Bridge is closed to traffic; refined design description
  • November 29, 2010: Updated by David Backlin: Corrected GPS

Related Bridges 

Sources 

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Comments 

Chatham Street Bridge
Posted December 29, 2012, by Clark Vance (cvance [at] dogmail [dot] com)

From what I read after a search, there's a lot of blame being placed on deferred maintenance and diverted road tax money.

There might be less need to replace some of the older bridges if more places did like Missouri and made it the law that all money collected as road tax must actually be spent caring for roads.

Chatham Street Bridge
Posted December 29, 2012, by Roger Deschner

Bridge now closed to all traffic. Unbelievable that a bridge built in 1964 could have been so badly neglected that it is falling down now. It does not even appear to have been painted since it was built. An amazing case of neglect.