MT. VERNON - The Illinois Department of Transportation will be closing the Interstate 64 westbound ramp on Fridays through Monday mornings each week during construction of additional lanes on Interstate 57.
"The ramp closure is for traffic control only," Keith Roberts of IDOT explained. "We're doing this to try to alleviate horrible backups we had in the past for that area."
Roberts said with Illinois Route 37 as a secondary detour for the construction on I-57, people have been using the state highway, then re-entering at the I-64.
"They think they have gotten around any backup, but they are just jumping back into it at the worst place," Roberts said. "This is an effort to help direct motorists away from that area up to the Dix exit during the peak traffic count hours."
Roberts said IDOT has looked at the traffic counts for the area, and said, with a few exceptions, traffic backups on I-57 have been "tolerable"
"The maximum delays of peak hours of traffic are 20 to 25 minutes, maximum," Roberts said. "With the anticipation of people using the backup detour, we need to keep people on the detour past Dix to help with the construction congestion, otherwise, the detour doesn't help."
Roberts said peak traffic hours are northbound on I-57 on weekends, which is prompting the intermittent ramp closure.
"Due to the reconstruction of I-57, and heavier traffic volumes during weekend hours, the ramp from Illinois Route 37 to access I-64 westbound will be closed on Fridays and remain closed until Monday (morning) each week," information from IDOT states. "This closure will continue on weekends only until further notice. Motorists wanting to access I-57 should use Illinois Route 37 north to Dix and access I-57 via the ramps at Dix." - http://bit.ly/HQDmlZ
