Broken Jefferson Street Bridge Won't Open For 7 More Months

JOLIET, IL — Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk is fed up with the Illinois Department of Transportation's inability to fix the Jefferson Street Bridge. This week, O'Dekirk said city officials were told that IDOT doesn't foresee the repairs being made until at least October.

"It's unacceptable that this won't happen," the mayor told Joliet Patch. "It's been going on for a year. I think enough is enough. It seems like it never gets open on time. They're saying it's now not going to be done until October. Last summer, it was supposed to be done in the fall, and then it became April. It's definitely thwarting development downtown."

The bridge was shut down last June 1 for scheduled maintenance. On July 17, Patch reported that IDOT announced the bridge would remain shut down until the end of 2020. In November, IDOT told Patch the re-opening was pushed back until April 30, 2021.

IDOT — not the city of Joliet — oversees the bridges and the maintenance and repairs. IDOT remains unable to fix the Jefferson Street Bridge. That's the main drawbridge into downtown Joliet, the county seat for Will County.

Joliet Patch is downtown daily during the work week and crews from the IDOT are never repairing the bridge. Weeks go by at a time and no Illinois Department of Transportation vehicles are seen parked in front of the broken bridge.

O'Dekirk said he will speak at Friday's 2 p.m. news conference in front of the Jefferson Street Bridge near City Hall. Besides other city officials, O'Dekirk said he expects representatives from downtown Joliet's businesses, the City Center Partnership and the Will County Center for Economic Development to attend the event as well.

O'Dekirk said the city needs the Illinois Department of Transportation to get this bridge fixed as soon as possible or start building a new bridge in its place.

O'Dekirk said he is open to the idea of building a new bridge for downtown Joliet because the Jefferson Street Bridge has broken down for months at a time on a number of occasions in recent history.

Joliet's drawbridges were all built around 1930.

O'Dekirk said that Joliet approached IDOT last summer about making the one-way Cass Street Bridge over the Des Plaines River into a two-way bridge to alleviate traffic problems, but IDOT rejected the idea, saying the Jefferson Street Bridge closure would only be temporary.

Now, the city is facing a shutdown of a year-and-a-half, O'Dekirk remarked Tuesday night, saying that's unacceptable.

The new Will County Courthouse just opened in November on Jefferson Street. Thousands of people who either work at the courthouse or need to go here for business must take alternative routes, because the main one-way bridge coming from the west side of Joliet remains shutdown and nobody from the state is fixing it, the mayor added.

On Nov. 9, IDOT officials told Joliet Patch that the Jefferson Street Bridge's re-opening had been pushed back from January until April 30.

"Due to the age of these types of bridges a lot of the parts have to be custom made and there are few fabricators that make the parts," IDOT spokeswoman Maria Castaneda wrote Patch five months ago. "At this time, we are waiting for mechanical parts from the fabricator needed to repair the bridge. Once we receive the parts we can continue with the repairs, weather permitting."

On Tuesday night, O'Dekirk told Patch he is hoping the area's state senators and state representatives step up and become advocates for Joliet during this time of crisis. Nowadays, the Joliet area's elected officials are: State Rep. Larry Walsh Jr., D-Elwood, State Sen. John Connor, D-Lockport, State Sen. Meg Loughran Cappel, D-Shorewood, and State Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet.