Why Did Chicago's Expressway Suicide Ramps Last 65 Years?

Chicago's Kennedy Expressway suicide ramps have one explanation everyone repeats, but a real 1965 Chicago traffic study says that's not the full story. You'll see what these left-hand entrance ramps near Hubbard's Cave actually looked like, why Chicago's expressway history forced engineers to squeeze eleven of them into less than a mile downtown, and what the Northwestern University safety study found when it measured the real accident data. You'll also see how the Circle Interchange, later renamed the Jane Byrne Interchange, fits into the 65-year timeline it took Illinois to finally fix this corridor. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 The ramps everyone feared 1:30 What the ramps looked like 3:45 Why they were built backwards 5:50 The 1965 study nobody talks about 10:40 The 65-year fix Subscribe to Hidden Chicagoland for more buried Chicago history, and tell us which expressway quirk to cover next. SOURCES 1. Study of Operational Characteristics of Left-Hand Entrance and Exit Ramps on Urban Freeways - Highway Research Record No. 99 (1965) https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs... 2. Kennedy Expressway - Wikiwand https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/... 3. Kennedy Expressway - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy... 4. Jane Byrne Interchange - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_By... 5. Suicide Ramp Reconstruction to Begin https://www.b12partners.net/wp/2009/0... #Chicago #ChicagoHistory #KennedyExpressway #HiddenChicagoland #ChicagoTraffic #CircleInterchange #JaneByrneInterchange #Expressway #Illinois #UrbanHistory #IDOT #HighwayHistory #Midwest