Mini Route 38 construction update
It's Monday, the day I go in early because we have a meeting at work. I made sure to leave extra early today in case my normal route to work was already messed up. Luckily, things were okay at 7:30 AM, though the construction vehicles were already staging for the work that was supposed to shut down Route 38 at 9 AM. Finally, there were signs posted on Fabyan approaching 38, and given the routing of the detour, kind of incongruous: The detour for eastbound 38, a right-hand turn, required a left-hand turn onto westbound 38. That is messed up, guys. Why they don't have signs back at Fabyan and Kirk, considering Kirk is the legit street on the detour, I'm not sure. You're going close to five miles out of your way to go from Fabyan and Kirk, to Fabyan and 38, back west on 38 to Kirk, not to mention passing several streets that will get you up to North Avenue from 38. Hopefully the people who know the area will be aware of that. In that case, if you know where you're at, it's a matter of getting around the airport--one street's east, one street's west. Like Fermilab, there are only so many ways around it.
After debating about it, I decided going through West Chicago on the way home was likely not an ideal route and opted to go south of Fermilab. I haven't been that way in several years and was surprised to see several new buildings on Ferry Road. I took Ferry to Eola to Butterfield to Kirk, then west on Wilson into town. Butterfield is still in terrible shape, though at least there have been numerous patches so the road isn't hole-y. Ideally, the whole road would get rebuilt, but that would require a major disruption of that route--it's only two lanes in that area--and we'd be dealing with the same issues as with 38. They've been slowly widening Butterfield over the years, so it may just be a matter of time before it happens west of 59. So long as they coordinate the construction so that people can still get around Fermilab, that's the important part. Route 38 is in better shape than Butterfield, but it's not great and hopefully will be rebuilt at some point in the future.
After debating about it, I decided going through West Chicago on the way home was likely not an ideal route and opted to go south of Fermilab. I haven't been that way in several years and was surprised to see several new buildings on Ferry Road. I took Ferry to Eola to Butterfield to Kirk, then west on Wilson into town. Butterfield is still in terrible shape, though at least there have been numerous patches so the road isn't hole-y. Ideally, the whole road would get rebuilt, but that would require a major disruption of that route--it's only two lanes in that area--and we'd be dealing with the same issues as with 38. They've been slowly widening Butterfield over the years, so it may just be a matter of time before it happens west of 59. So long as they coordinate the construction so that people can still get around Fermilab, that's the important part. Route 38 is in better shape than Butterfield, but it's not great and hopefully will be rebuilt at some point in the future.