Mayor: 'We Can Turn Cass Street Bridge Into 2-Way Thoroughfare'

JOLIET, IL — Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk backed off the idea of ripping the Illinois Department of Transportation to shreds over IDOT's continued failure to repair Joliet's primary bridge for motorists trying to get downtown from the west side of Joliet.

At Friday's news conference near the Jefferson Street Bridge, which has been closed since June 1, the mayor softened his stance. He urged IDOT to allow Joliet to make the nearby Cass Street Bridge into a temporary two-way thoroughfare while the Jefferson Street Bridge remains broken down. This week, IDOT announced the Jefferson Street Bridge won't be fixed until at least October.

Nobody from IDOT was working on the Jefferson Street Bridge on Friday, which is typical. IDOT bridge repair crews haven't been working on the site for weeks, if not months.

"But as long as this bridge is going to be out, we can turn the Cass Street Bridge into a two-way thoroughfare," O'Dekirk remarked. "It's been that way before, it's been done before. The answer we've got from IDOT, and I will say, we've had our state reps and our state senators, also try to intervene on this, IDOT has rejected that saying that (Jefferson Street) closure wasn't going to be long enough to justify turning Cass Street into a two-way street.

"But, as I just pointed out, we're going to be looking at a 15 or 16-month closure probably at its best, so it's something we can do to alleviate the problem. We can do it immediately and then, of course, we have to have the talks about the long-term solution. What's going to happen in downtown Joliet moving forward?

"There's been good things happening in downtown Joliet," O'Dekirk continued. "We have a lot of private investment, many of those people are here today. Will County certainly made an incredible investment in the downtown Joliet when they chose to build the $200 million courthouse right here in Joliet ... we also reopened Chicago Street just a few months ago, which was a commitment that I had made as mayor. So there's a lot of good things happening in downtown Joliet, but it's all for nothing, if we're going to have the major thoroughfare continuously closing ... to get to downtown Joliet.

"Downtown will never thrive and never get to where all of us want it to be as long as this keeps happening," the mayor added.

About 50 people attended the mayor's news conference overlooking the Joliet canal. Other speakers included Mike Paone from Joliet's Chamber of Commerce; Megan Millen, Joliet Public Library executive director; Doug Pryor from Will County Center for Economic Development; Greg Peerbolte, director at the Joliet Area Historical Museum; Val Devine, director of the Rialto Square Theater; Judy Mitchell, president of Joliet Junior College, and John Wilson, a representative from the Joliet Slammers independent league baseball club.

After all the scheduled speakers were done talking, Norris Hamilton, senior vice president and general manager at Harrah's Casino & Hotel in downtown Joliet, and Glenda McCullum, an at-large candidate for Joliet City Council in the April 6 race, took to the podium to offer their own comments at Friday's 2 p.m. news conference.

Hamilton said over the past 10 days, he's seen the Cass Street Bridge "get stuck three or four times and traffic back up on that side. So, when you think about this Jefferson Street Bridge that's been out now for almost a year, it's forecast to be out longer than that, there is a definite concern with the access to downtown Joliet. I am in all favor of making sure that the bridges are safe for people to travel, and if having to take the bridge down to make it safe needs to happen, then absolutely, but let's do it in a timely manner.

"Let's make sure we spend time and invest the energy to make sure that the bridges our safe and that we can get them back open safely to get not only our guests across but our employees across. So I do support the mayor in this effort to plead upon IDOT to at least speed up the process of repairing this bridge but also making Cass Street potentially a two-way traffic to open up Joliet."

McCullum said that driving from the east side of Joliet to the city's west side "can sometimes turn a 15-minute commute into 45 minutes depending on if the McDonough Street Bridge or the Jackson Street Bridge is raised. The traffic that comes through McDonough Street is horrific ... as well as the Jackson Street Bridge, and so on behalf of the residents and the citizens of Joliet, I believe that we have and have need of greater access to be able to get from one side of the town to the other.

"And so I stand even with this Council and Mayor O'Dekirk in doing whatever is necessary in order to get this bridge fixed and to get the bridge open or at least ... be able to give us two-way traffic on the thoroughfare on Cass Street," she said.