Half Of Jefferson Street Bridge Works Again: Video

JOLIET, IL — On March 19, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk held a news conference joined by several downtown business owners and community civic leaders to implore the Illinois Department of Transportation to fix the broken Jefferson Street Bridge.

Joliet's main travel route into downtown Joliet from the city's west side was shut down by the IDOT last June 1 for repairs. The bridge has not been operational since.

Since the mayor held his news conference four weeks ago, there are now signs of progress being made, and the Illinois Department of Transportation is getting its act together.

First off, the Brandon Road Bridge near Route 6 that had remained closed for 15 straight months was finally reopened, to everyone's surprise.

And this past week, half of the Jefferson Street Bridge started working again.

The drawbridge span on the east side of the Des Plaines River has been going up and down when boats go by.

The span on the west side, however, remains in the upright position.

With only the east drawbridge span working properly Friday, unfortunately, there is still no way for motorists to get to downtown Joliet or to the Will County Courthouse using the Jefferson Street Bridge.

Unless, perhaps, you own the Bluesmobile, a 1974 Dodge Monaco.

In March, Mayor O'Dekirk became furious when IDOT announced that the time frame for fixing the Jefferson Street Bridge had been pushed back from April to October.

But maybe the mayor's news conference made some noise within the Illinois Department of Transportation bridge maintenance division.

Around 2 p.m. on Friday, Joliet Patch spotted one of the bridge maintenance workers walking on the east span of the bridge. If you look closely, you can see the man wearing a bright orange vest in the top photo of this article.

The sighting marked the first time in many months that Joliet Patch has noticed anybody who worked for the state of Illinois doing work on the Jefferson Street Bridge.

Who knows? Maybe next week there will be two IDOT bridge repair workers instead of just one.