Chicago, Cook County, IL
Rock Island Line Viaduct over Cermak Road at Clark Street (Chinatown, Chicago)
Clearance 12'10"
- Clearance
- 12'10" · City of Chicago DOT — Viaduct Clearances (posted-clearance list, 2017 snapshot)
- Carried
- Metra Rock Island District ("Rock Island Lines")
- Crosses
- Cermak Road, near Clark Street (120 W Cermak Rd), Chinatown
- Location
- Chicago, Cook County, IL
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Incident history
- Winter (year to be confirmed) Clearance strike
A Select One Inc. semi tried to squeeze under the ~12'10" Rock Island Lines viaduct near Chinatown and got stuck before clearing it, on a winter night. Documented by the Chicago M Weather Facebook page.
Vehicle: Select One Inc. semi-truck (SelectOneInc.net) · Chicago Police responded; the semi blocked the intersection · Cause: Driver misjudged the 12'10" clearance and wedged the trailer under the Rock Island viaductSources: Chicago M Weather (Facebook)
Statewide context — IL
Illinois DOT puts the average repair cost of an oversize-load bridge strike at roughly $400,000; the Illinois Trucking Association says $100,000 towing bills are “particularly common in the Chicagoland area.”
Transport Topics · 2021-04-06 · archived
Chicago has roughly 1,750 viaducts, many built in the late 1800s, and truck strikes are so routine that the Chicago Police Department 'gave up counting' vertical-clearance accidents — often not even ticketing because, as a CPD spokeswoman put it, the truck 'is already crunched like a sardine can with its top peeled off.' CDOT's program to raise the most-hit viaducts runs about $1.5 million each. (Reported by Heavy Duty Trucking, early 2000s.)
Heavy Duty Trucking (truckinginfo.com)