Real-time traffic, alerts to go live on I-90 this summer

The Chicago Daily Herald ^ | May 17, 2017 | Marni Pyke

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Jane Addams Tollway (I-90) drivers can expect those inscrutable black gantries towering over the roadway to get chatty this summer.

The Illinois tollway has completed installation and testing of 29 digital message signs between Barrington Road and O'Hare International Airport.

The displays will provide real-time traffic updates and safety advisories and direct drivers to shift lanes when crashes occur.

The system will go live around the end of July or early August, Chief Engineer Paul Kovacs said at a Wednesday committee meeting.

"All the construction is done and we've completed the testing so we know it's operational. Now we're training people who will be the ones responsible for the messages going up," Kovacs said.

The agency is adding seven employees to its traffic operations center, which will now run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, instead of just five days. The new positions will cost about $210,000 annually in salaries.

When a crash occurs, the system will shift traffic to avoid trouble spots, displaying green arrows for open lanes and red X's to indicate closed ones.

A larger message board on the far outside lanes will give updates on travel times, collisions and Amber Alerts.

The active transportation management system will cost about $33 million.

Pace is collaborating with the tollway and will be routing express buses on I-90 shoulder or "flex" lanes to be designated with digital signs.

"We expect to begin operating in the Flex Lane late this summer," said Pace spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken, adding that bus operators were in training.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I think that the title meant to say

Real-time traffic alerts to go live on I-90 this summer

without the comma

[DoughtyOne]

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[Balding_Eagle]

About 6 or 7 years ago DOT took down the signs showing the miles to various upcoming destinations, the usual signs on my stretch of I-25.

They were replaced with electronic signs which were to show how many minutes to those places.

I’ve only seen them working one time in all those years.

Only drivers with Goggle-maps know how far it is anymore.

[Founding Father]

I’d rather have real-time alerts on Chicago murders, shootings, etc.

[Founding Father]

Know your mile mark; know your exit number; you then know your mileage; if you know how to subtract.

[freedumb2003]

I can save them a lot of time and trouble:

You are stuck in traffic
You gonna be there awhile

[MrMarbles]

Illinois Tollway is a fucking joke.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Yesterday the message sign on US 60 south of Wickenburg AZ was showing a “Silver Alert”, about a red Ford Explorer and giving the license number. What is a Silver Alert? Old people driving? (It was just a few miles from the Country Kitchen Buffet, by the way. Can’t make this stuff up.)

[PAR35]

Running large buses on the shoulder at high speeds. Can’t foresee anything that might go wrong with that plan.

[PAR35]

What is a Silver Alert?

Old person with Alzheimer's that should have had their keys taken away before they got (possibly terminally) lost.

[Sequoyah101]

Sign says:

You are stuck in traffic.

[editor-surveyor]

.
Waze has done this for a while now.

[UB355]

Silver alerts are like amber alerts for seniors

[HartleyMBaldwin]

I thought it might be something like that. Some years ago, I read in a magazine about an elderly woman who asked her grandson to write out instructions on how to start the car and tape them to the dashboard. The family decided to take Grandma’s keys away at that point, but I often think of that story when I see a white head barely showing above the steering wheel in the oncoming lane.

[PAR35]

They usually get a few hours head start before anyone notices that they aren’t at one of their usual haunts, so they have to throw notices out several hundred miles.

[Chickensoup]

I’ve only seen them working one time in all those years.

Only drivers with Goggle-maps know how far it is anymore.

____________________

This is one of the many ways that the elite leftists are tracking you. The Obama administration screwed with signage all across the country. Remember how you could see route numbers at all intersections and know which way to go. Lots are gone.

We have these extra tall phone poles that have some sort of white cone with the top cut off that is placed every so often on the roads. Miles apart. I don’t know what it is but I assume surveillance of one sort or another.

I wish there was a website that identified all the equipment used to survey us. Getting on the turnpike here is like passing through the Spaceship Enterprise.

[C210N]

The signs are moving up in the world.

[DUMBGRUNT]

“Only drivers with Goggle-maps know how far it is anymore.”

Google maps already shows traffic.

Google Traffic is available by selecting “Traffic” from a drop-down menu on Google Maps. ... Google Traffic also displays “traffic incidents”, such as construction, accidents, and road closure

Why do we need more payrollers?

[Rebelbase]

Waze.com mobile app.

[ZinGirl]

Nice reference 👍