Awards
Honor Award, American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois, 2008
National Recognition Award, American Council of Engineering Companies, 2008
Best of 2007, Midwest Construction
Transportation Achievement Award, Institute of Transportation Engineers, 2007
National Achievement Award (state winner), National Partnership for Highway Quality
Hanson provided design services to the Illinois Tollway for the reconstruction and widening of 3.6 miles of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294/I-80) from the I-80/I-94/IL 394 interchange to the Markham Yard Bridge. The project included four pairs of mainline bridges, three local street grade separations, two railroad grade separations, the Halsted Street interchange, and the Lincoln Oasis service interchange.
Scope and key accomplishments
Hanson designed roadway and bridge improvements that expanded the corridor from six lanes to eight and 10 lanes; reconstructed the Halsted Street interchange; modernized toll collection facilities; and delivered comprehensive roadway, structural, traffic, drainage, lighting, utility, and maintenance-of-traffic designs. The project also included geometric upgrades, noise-abatement walls, retaining walls, fiber-optic and communications infrastructure, and significant profile modifications to improve drainage and achieve required vertical clearances at multiple structures.
Challenges and innovations
The project traversed environmentally sensitive areas within the Wampum Lake Forest Preserve, including protected biological and cultural resources and areas of poor subsurface soils and peat deposits. The corridor also passed through deep limestone rock cuts adjacent to Thornton Quarry, requiring complex geotechnical, grading and drainage solutions. To address the extensive rock excavation challenges, Hanson incorporated design and construction practices commonly used in mountainous regions, including controlled blasting techniques to facilitate safe and efficient rock removal.
High traffic volumes exceeding 136,000 vehicles per day, including a significant percentage of heavy trucks, posed challenges for data collection, field investigations, and construction staging. Hanson employed extensive nighttime inventory and inspection operations to safely gather critical design information.
To accelerate project delivery and maximize value, Hanson incorporated performance specifications for selected bridges, retaining walls, and noise walls, allowing contractor-led final design and material selection. This innovative approach enabled earlier project advertisement and contributed to reducing construction costs from the $150 million engineer’s estimate to a successful low bid of $136 million. Hanson also developed maintenance-of-traffic plans using crossovers and counterflow operations to maintain three lanes of traffic in each direction throughout construction.
From conventional to complex
This award-winning project successfully expanded corridor capacity, improved safety and operations, maintained traffic throughout construction and delivered substantial cost savings through innovative design and project delivery strategies.
What began as a conventional maintenance project evolved into one of the Illinois Tollway’s most significant congestion-relief investments. When new program funding became available, the scope expanded from pavement and bridge rehabilitation to full corridor widening and reconstruction. The Tollway placed its confidence in Hanson to deliver this substantially larger and more complex project under an aggressive schedule. At the time, it was the largest design assignment Hanson had undertaken for the Illinois Tollway, marking a significant milestone in the firm’s history and demonstrating its ability to successfully deliver major, complex transportation improvements.
