The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) said today that lane closures are expected to take effect early Friday, May 8, weather permitting, in the vicinity of Union Station on Jackson Blvd. and Canal St. as part of the Union Station Transit Center project, which is constructing a new off-street CTA bus facility just south of the train station that serves 120,000 people each day.

Starting before the morning rush on Friday, eastbound Jackson between Clinton St. and Canal St. will be temporarily reduced to only two through lanes with no parking lanes. In addition, the right turn from Jackson onto southbound canal will be permanently eliminated. A CTA bus stop on Jackson just west of Canal will be relocated across the intersection to the east side of Canal. A CTA bus stop at Canal south of Jackson will be eliminated.

Northbound traffic on Canal from Van Buren to Jackson will be temporarily reduced from three lanes to two lanes.

Union Station passengers are advised to allow extra time getting to and from the station. Access to the Union Station Parking Garage, to the south of the construction site, will continue from Canal and Clinton Streets, with access no longer available from Jackson.

The new off-street bus center will provide key connections with other modes of transport including the Loop Link. The transit center will be located south of Jackson between Canal and Clinton, and will provide sheltered staging areas for CTA buses and customers and a vertical connection, with an elevator, to an existing Amtrak underground pedway, allowing commuters weather-protected access to Union Station without crossing at street level. The transit center is scheduled to open for service in spring of 2016.

Loop Link lane closures currently in place on Madison St. from Michigan to Wacker Drive and Washington St. from Franklin to Clark remain in effect.

The Loop Link project, scheduled for substantial completion by the end of 2015, will modernize the Loop’s transit infrastructure, making bus travel faster and more reliable for the roughly 30,000 bus commuters that travel across the corridor and at Union Station each day. The project will create a balanced separation of bus, bike and regular traffic by installing red-colored bus only lanes on Madison, Washington, Canal and Clinton on a circuit extending from Union Station to Millennium Park. Two lanes will be dedicated for cars and trucks and protected bike lanes will be installed eastbound on Washington, westbound on Randolph and in both directions on Clinton.

More than 1,000 bus trips will traverse the Loop Link each day. The buses on the Loop Link serve a number of Chicago neighborhoods, including South Shore, Little Village, Austin and Logan Square to name a few, and the services make critical links to Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center, CTA subways and Navy Pier.

For more information on the Loop Link, go to www.ChicagoLoopLink.com

You can also follow CDOT on digital media:

Twitter: @ChicagoDOT
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CDOTNews
The web chicagodot.org

 ###