Busy Irving Park Road closed at York in Bensenville for 4 months

BENSENVILLE, Ill. (WLS) -- A busy stretch of Irving Park Road in Bensenville is closed- again- because trucks keep getting stuck under a railroad bridge. That bridge near York Road just opened to traffic two days ago.

The original plan was to keep the intersection open while crews lowered the roadway under the fly-over railroad bridge. That was expected to take four months. Despite signs warning of the temporary, 12' 6" clearance, big trucks kept on trying. In 48 hours, about 15 trucks scraped the bridge. Three got stuck underneath.

"In one of those instances, a truck was hanging over active tracks, and flashers had to stop the oncoming train," Daniel DiSanto, assistant manager of the Village of Bensenville, said.

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IDOT has since decided to close the intersection, which is used by about 37,000 vehicles, a fair part of which are trucks, a day.

"IDOT does not like to close roads just to close roads," Tony Quigley, IDOT, said. "But we have to think of the safety of the motoring public. All the rail traffic that goes through there, along with the people of Bensenville and O'Hare."

With the closure, traffic will have to circumnavigate O'Hare International Airport.

"It's a bad thing. Not doing it in a timely manner, I would say," Samuel Fye, truck driver, said.

"You find your way around. It's a lot better than the way it used to be," Greg Dillaura, truck driver, said.

IDOT said it has no alternative but to close the intersection. Bensenville isn't happy with the closure, but hopes it will speed up the project.

"We're hoping with four months we can get that down to two months and be open by Memorial Day Weekend," DiSanto said.