Back in the early 1960s, some of the delay in building the Interstate highway system was it could cost as much as a $million a mile to build!<\/p>\n
Today, the $64 million, 2 mile extension to South Lakeshore Drive opened through the former US Steel South Chicago works site. It’s not an interstate, just a boulevard with bike paths, pedestrian crossing lights, traffic sensitive signals that use LEDs that are green, and crabapple trees.<\/p>\n
Now that the street has been built, redevelopment of the US Steel property can begin, with high rise residential buildings where you’ll have a greAt view of Gary Indiana and the former Calumet landfill.<\/p>\n
The US Steel South Chicago works employed 20,000 people at its peak. With the creation of the EPA, its days were numbered. The facility finally closed for good in 1992. The prosperity it brought to the South Side as an employer of recent immigrants was replaced by the abandoned neighborhoods, government dependency and violent drug gangs. Now that’s pretty progressive.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.suntimes.com\/photos\/galleries\/index.html?story=23368736<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in the early 1960s, some of the delay in building the Interstate highway system was it could cost as much as a $million a mile to build! Today, the $64 million, 2 mile extension to South Lakeshore Drive opened … Continue reading