Under the Building a New Chicago infrastructure investment program city crews, contractors and utilities have resurfaced nearly 300 miles of streets and alleys in 2013, and nearly 700 miles total since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011.

Through various programs, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and utilities resurfaced 185 miles of streets and alleys in 2013.

Over the past three construction seasons, CDOT and the utilities have resurfaced more than 475 miles of streets and alleys while DWM has resurfaced nearly 215 miles.

In 2013, Department of Water Management (DWM) installed 75 miles of water mains, 17 miles of new sewer mains, and has relined 42 miles of sewer mains. Through that construction work, DWM restored and resurfaced more than 104 miles worth of arterial and residential streets.

With better coordination on infrastructure improvement projects through CDOT’s Project Management Office, both departments and the utilities worked together to reduce the amount of project conflicts that would open up a street more than once. By setting new standards for restoring the public way after construction, the various gas, electric and telecommunications utilities resurfaced more miles of Chicago streets.

In 2013, the City realized a savings of approximately $14 million through the coordination of projects with utilities and the requirements that they fully restore the roadways after their construction projects.

DWM plans to increase their workload in 2014 to installing 85 miles of new water mains, 21 miles of new sewer mains, and relining 51 miles of sewer mains. DWM will also repave between 80 and 90 miles of roadway and install 15,000 new water meters.

CDOT and the utilities plan to resurface at least 175 miles of streets and alleys in 2014. In 2013, CDOT replaced approximately 50,000 street light bulbs in a proactive investment to reduce the number of instances of single-light outages.

Additionally, CDOT installed 4,700 individual units of new energy-efficient street lighting on 300 blocks citywide, including new poles and fixtures, as well as more than 2,200 new alley lights this year. The department plans to relight at least 250 blocks of streets in 2014 with 18-foot-high poles with lights that use 33 percent less energy that traditional street lights.

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