By Nick Reiher

Scheduled to speak at the July 15 Joliet Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon, Illinois Transportation Secretary Gia Biagi knew she would be talking about bridges.

Not only the new Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River, but the ones in and near Downtown Joliet that always seem to be out of service or down to one lane.

“I understand it has a huge effect on your quality of life,” Biagi told the crowd at the Clarion Hotel. “They are your lifeline. … But we can’t just cut and paste. These repairs take time.”

As it stands, the Brandon Road Bridge just south of downtown has been closed since 2023, and will be closed a while longer as workers found more damage than expected when they went in to do the initial fixes, said John Schumacher, Bureau Chief of Construction for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The Jackson Street Bridge, limited to one lane is getting routine maintenance done, he said, but the Cass Street Bridge, closed since last fall, is the first of Joliet’s bridges to get a complete overhaul.

Biagi said once the complete rehabs on the bridges are complete, it will “make them good for decades and decades.”

Since the bridges are more than 90 years old, Biagi said it takes longer to get the work done. Schumacher agreed.

“You can’t just get these parts at Home Depot,” he said. “You also have to find the people to draw the parts and then others to make them. And we can’t tell our contractors where to get their parts. We can only give them the specifications.”

Biagi also noted she had attended the ribbon cutting for the work on the new I-80 bridges over the Des Plaines River. The $140 million project will straighten the approaches by moving them slightly to the north. Once they are done, the current bridges will come down.

That bridge work is part of the $45 billion Capital Plan passed by the Legislature in 2019. Also included is widening I-80 from Minooka to New Lenox, including new interchanges at Interstate 55, Larkin Avenue, Center Street, Chicago Street, Richards Street and Briggs Street.

Biagi said about $1.4 billion had been allocated for the I-80 project, because state officials know how important the road — one of only three cross-country highways in the nation — is to the country’s infrastructure.

“Eighty-thousand vehicles pass through there every day,” Biagi said. “And 25 percent of them are trucks. What affects Joliet and Will County affects the entire state and the entire region.”

Will County Clerk Annette Parker asked about the planned closure for of the integral Ninth Street Bridge into Lockport scheduled for 2029. The only alternative routes into Lockport are the Joliet bridges or the 135th Street Bridge in Romeoville.

Schumacher said they are only in Phase II of the project. So they’ll keep people updated as it goes on.

Almost forgotten was the opportunity ask Biagi about the long-languishing South Suburban Airport set for the Peotone-Monee area. The state acquired Bult Field near the planned area in 2014 for $34 million, as well as thousands of acres of adjacent farmland.

Jennel Hooper, Executive Director of the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce, read a statement reenforcing their support for the airport, which they see as an economic stimulus for the region.

Biagi reiterated that the airport would be a public-private partnership, and though while they have been moving slowly, it has been in a “deliberative way.”