We are hearing that there has been a water main break and that Junior Terrace at Marine Drive is closed.
Take a quick drive around Uptown and note all the sinkholes reappearing and ask yourself why millions of dollars are being funneled to pet project TIFs and not to the things TIFs are "supposed" to fix, like blighted infrastructure and public transit. Someone could even be using her huge stash of menu money, just saying.
Update: A resident of Imperial Towers sends in the photo above showing workers using pumps and attempting to repair the broken main. You might avoid this area until repairs are complete.
repairs are complete for today. The water is back on, and there is a huge hole filled with gravel. The road is back open.
ReplyDeleteThat water main has broken through the street at least 4 times in the past 15 years. The reason it bursts every few years is because it is not buried deep enough and cannot withstand a deep freeze that goes very far into the ground (You know -- like in a typical Chicago winter.) It is no surprise that another geyser erupted after nighttime temps dipped into low double and single digits for several days in a row. The Junior Terrace geyser has been a 46th Ward money pit for years and is never truly fixed. Just patch, patch, patch.
ReplyDeleteAnd, city sewer and outside contractor crews worked on Marine and Montrose just 4 months ago in conjunction with the Marine Drive repaving project. They were trying to clean out the sewers so that the Montrose LSD underpass does not flood again - like it does every year in heavy rainstorms. The real problem is that the sewers are undersized for the highrises added to the area over the past 40 years. And yes, this is the same area in which Shiller proposes to add Wilson Yard II with 3-4 more highrises.
The sewers in the park across the street have been plugged for years too. (You know, the ones where the 46th Ward, LSD and park district street cleaning trucks dump their sewage water on the streets.) Only a few catch basins were cleaned 2 summers ago but most have not been cleaned in 20 years (per the sewer crews, who were finding beer cans from the 70's down those pipes.) There is not a single working sewer catch basin in the entire Lawrence parking lot. (You know, the one that Truman college uses for free and the one that the city and forestry department use as their salt pile storage area and wood chip / brush pile dump.) No wonder the city won't add any toilets to support the 6 new soccer fields and numerous special events shoehorned into that area. Fourth of July with no rental toilets at Montrose always results in the underpasses, bird sanctuaries, and Marovitz Savanna turning into open air toilets. Why no rental toilets? Because Taste of Chicago demands the entire supply downtown,letting Uptown be literally shit on.
Also, this fall water department crews were using St Patty's Day style green dye, which dyed Montrose Harbor green, to try to locate an underground a water main leak in Uptown that is wasting significant amounts of city water supply.
Some aldermanic menu money and interest in this problem could have changed these water problems that have plagued Uptown for 15 years.
You're half right Holly... we have cold water. (And while there are, indeed, times I require a cold shower, February ain't one of them.)
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