Consider this fair warning if traveling through the great state of illinois near the metro chicago area. AVOID I-355 at all costs. Not only do you get to pay to drive on it, it is quite possibly the WORST road I have ever traveled. Now, I live in the metro chicago area, and have driven I-355 many times, not towing, in my suburban. This week, we towed our new TT over it, and I could only safely go 40mph. My brother had warned me before about how bad it is in his semi, I thought he was joking. The bounce was so bad I was almost coming off the seat at 50mph. NOT swaying, BOUNCING, UP down UP down, it was BAD. I was convinced that I must have a flat, pulled over, everything was fine. Started back up, same thing. So, please take my advice and avoid I-355, and thank me later.
We went through there on the way to Montana from Ohio last year. Horrible and very expensive. On the way back we attempted to avoid all of the gouging Illinois toll roads.
We discharged our calculator batteries learning Illinois has placed and priced the tolls so you would lose some dinero in extra gas and inconvenience trying to go around them. Now that gas is over $4 we'd waste another calc battery and try to do it again.
Actually a worse road was the Pa. turnpike a few years ago. Not only was it a giant expensive chuck hole but they barricaded the lane widths so tight it seemed like inches on either side of the rv. White knuckle all the way while donating generously to their squalor.
* This post was
edited 07/20/08 08:27am by Admiral *
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Although it's "free", I-90 through much of Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota is similar. I wish the upper Midwest would quit using concrete for major roads with lots of truck traffic, and switch to asphalt instead.
Most of the Chicago area tollways, IMO, are pretty bad. 294 is hardly any better.
The same thing on I-59 from Tuscaloosa, AL to I-10 in Louisiana/Mississippi. It's still...unless they've changed it in the last year....the old superslab concrete, and it seems like each slab is either up 2 inches higher or 2 inches lower than the next. And, there are places i'd swear they are even higher or lower than that. Rest stops to pee constantly when pulling my TT.....and to see if the insides were still attached.
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dodge guy wrote: ... and IL has the worst roads of them all and we pay to use them.
they probably were the busiest as well. Heavy traffic puts a lot of wear and tear on the highway, and makes repair a long and expensive operation. If Montana wants to repair a stretch of I90, they just divert traffic from one side over to the other, restricting flow to 1 lane in each direction. Repaving a lane of I355 isn't that easy.
dodge guy wrote: ... and IL has the worst roads of them all and we pay to use them.
they probably were the busiest as well. Heavy traffic puts a lot of wear and tear on the highway, and makes repair a long and expensive operation. If Montana wants to repair a stretch of I90, they just divert traffic from one side over to the other, restricting flow to 1 lane in each direction. Repaving a lane of I355 isn't that easy.
It would be, but only if you didn't need to pay off the concrete union workers first.
IL has always had bad roads, going back to the mid-60's when they built the Dan Ryan Expy. Poorly constructed, bad materiels-actually they cheated on that part and it was a major re-construction project on the Stevenson. It was said, that Chicago got the school money and downstate got the road funds. Prolly still true.
Montana and Wyoming do roads in record time, tho Montana stops for the winter. I've seen Wyoming do 18 miles of roads from tearup, to complete rebuild from frost line (six feet down), to incorporate five concrete bridges, numerous culverts, replacing fences, cattle guards and phone poles to road base and chip sealing in less than 2 years! The two 12 foot lanes and two six foot shoulders built in 1998 are still in beautiful condition last weekend. This is haul road with really heavy trucks running on it 18-20 hrs/day.
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One reason I run I-39 around Chicago. Anything to avoid those over priced Toll Roads. Moved out of IL. when I retired. Used to run the Tollway every days to and from work.
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