Ribbon-Cutting Makes It Official -- Route 59 Work Finished After 3 Long Years

As four lanes of traffic flowed in the background, Plainfield officials and residents gathered Friday to celebrate the end of three years of Route 59 construction, delays and headaches.

“Right now Plainfield is open and ready for business,” Plainfield Mayor Michael Collins said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday morning to commemorate the culmination of the $89 million widening project.

“It’s long overdue,” he said. “That’s nobody’s fault, but it’s long overdue.”

Widening Route 59 was the last chapter in the 10-year story that mirrored explosive growth in the village. It began in 2001 with the widening of the Route 59 viaduct just north of town, folowed by the $7 million downtown streetscape project and a water main update.

Upgrading the road to four lanes started in 2008, bad timing in that it dovetailed with an economic downturn that hurt businesses that lost customers when people found alternatives to Route 59.

Next came the three years it would take to transform Route 59 into a
four-lane, an economic drought that choked some shops and restaurants right out of business and made Map-Quest masters of customers finding routes to avoid Plainfield.

The newly widened road between Union Street and Caton Farm Road, along with the rebuilt I-55 interchange in Shorewood, opened last summer. The bridge replacement on Route 59 over the DuPage River north of Caton Farm Road was wrapped up a year ago. The last section, between Renwick Road and Route 126, has been open to four-lane traffic for about two weeks.

“Congratulations to all of you for making it,” state Sen. Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) told the Plainfield business community.

For her personally, “it is great not to be zipping up and down Drauden Road,” she said.

Businesses will now begin reaping the benefits of the new road and the ease with which customers will be able to get to them, said Tim Stetenfeld, chairman of the Plainfield Economic Development Task Force. Stetenfeld lives just a block from his Edward Jones Investments office at Lockport Street and Route 59, he said, but even he was forced to find an alternate way to get to work.

“Once the economy picks up, Plainfield will be ready to move
forward,” he said. “It’s been painful, but it was the right time to do it.”

Soothing customers who came to teller windows in a state of pique over traffic became a required job skill for workers at Harris Bank, personal banker Jonny Galen said. The bank branch on the southeast corner of Lockport and Route 59 has been blockaded by orange cones and a mind-boggling maze of signs and arrows for years.

“We’ve learned to be sensitive to the frustration of customers who got used to going out of their way to get here or going to different branches,” he said. “We offered cookies, lemonade and patience.”

Many of the customers who learned to get downtown “the back
way” via Van Dyke Road are saying they are not able to get there using Route 59, said Mike Vaughn, owner of Bin 48 Wine Bar and Grille on Lockport Street.

“It’s been terrible, but this is really it,” he said. “Traffic is really flowing again.”

Laura Rodriguez noticed that about a week ago, she said. She brought her daughter, niece and a friend downtown Friday to check out “Route 59 Specials” discounts and promotions Plainfield businesses were offering to celebrate the opening.

Rodriguez travels from Caton Farm Road south of Plainfield to 135th Street on the far north side to work. Now that she doesn’t have to use the back roads, she said, she’s shaved 20 minutes from her commute.

“It’s wonderful to finally have a four-lane to get through here,” she said.

Carrying out a massive construction project on the thoroughfare that carries as many as 38,000 vehicles a day through Plainfield, Troy Township and Joliet was a daunting challenge, said Diane O’Keefe, Illinois Department of Transportation district director.

“When it comes to safety concerns, nowhere has it been more
appropriate than between (Route) 126 and (Route) 30 through the heart of historic Plainfield,” she said. “At the end of the day, you have a wonderful road to get customers to buy and to bring sales tax dollars in.”

State Rep. Tom Cross (R-Plainfield) said the Route 59 road-widening project is a good example of what can be accomplished when politicians on both sides of the aisle work together to get things done.

The Route 59 widening project has created 1,150 construction jobs, according to IDOT officials said. State and federal dollars paid for the
construction and municipalities kicked in cash for sidewalks, street lights, water mains and some of the traffic lights.