Division Street Bridge
Description
One of a pair of nearly identical bridges over the Cal Sag Channel in Blue Island. The other is at Chatham Street, and was in about the same bad condition prior to rehabilitation.This bridge underwent major repair and rehabilitation, and reopened on August 4, 2016. It needed repairs badly - the 2010 inspection rated it "Imminent Failure", and it had been closed since 2010. It appears that between 1964 when it was built, and 2015 when rehabilitation started, it had received no maintenance at all, not even painting. Furthermore, it had a design flaw where rainwater (or salty snowmelt) from the deck drained directly onto the support members, hastening corrosion.
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge over Cal Sag Channel on Division Street in Blue island
- Location
- Blue Island, Cook County, Illinois
- Status
- Reopened after rehabilitation
- History
- Built 1964; closed 2010; reopened August 4, 2016
- Design
- Polygonal Warren through truss with all verticals
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 289.6 ft.
Total length: 371.0 ft.
Deck width: 29.8 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 16.0 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +41.65280, -87.67017 (decimal degrees)
41°39'10" N, 87°40'13" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 16/444197/4611444 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Blue Island
- Average daily traffic (as of 2018)
- 2,550
- Inventory numbers
- IL 016-5005 (Illinois bridge number)
BH 15120 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of July 2018)
- Overall condition: Good
Superstructure condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 89 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- March 27, 2017: New photos from Roger Deschner
- September 13, 2016: Updated by Roger Deschner: Rehab complete; bridge reopened
- December 14, 2015: Updated by Roger Deschner: Bridge saved! Currently under rehabilitation.
- November 7, 2015: New photos from Roger Deschner
- October 8, 2013: New Street View added by J.P.
- March 17, 2013: Updated by Roger Deschner: Bridge had been closed
- February 5, 2012: Updated by Steve Conro: Adjusted GPS
Related Bridges
- Chatham Street Bridge (Upstream) - Pair of nearly identical bridges
Sources
- Steve Conro - sconro [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Historicbridges.org - by Nathan Holth
- Roger Deschner - rogerdeschner [at] gmail [dot] com
- J.P. - wildcatjon2000 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Daily Southtown Newspaper - Story about rehabilitation project
- Blue Island bridge reopens after $8 million rehabilitation - Daily Southtown
Comments
Roger... Not sure if it will come to pass, but the February 2012 Blue Island Active Transportation Plan suggested rehab of Chatham Street for non-motorized use. In either case, it is nice to see Division redone... it had received zero work since the day it was built, and had some serious problems... and I am glad they solved them through rehab.
I drove by this bridge this morning, and saw a crew hard at work rehabilitating it. They've already finished painting it blue (for Blue Island) and they were working on the deck today.
Now if only something like this could be done for the nearby, nearly-identical, also-closed, Chatham Street Bridge.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/il/cook/16500525142/
The bridge is open again after rehab. See the Daily Southtown article about the reopening in the links section for a description of the design flaw that hastened corrosion on this bridge. This design flaw was apparently corrected in the rehab. Nice to see the nearby Chatham Street bridge also being repaired.