IL 83 "SB" across the Cal-Sag Channel, though really on 127th St. EB in Alsip. IDOT made a strange decision to take IL 83 off Cal-Sag Rd., which it was using to follow the south shore of the Channel, cross it over here, and then send it down IL 50 right past Cal-Sag Rd. again. The routing does bring IL 83 to the spread-out I-294 interchange with IL 50, but that could have been accomplished with a few signs at 127th St. instead of a circuitous reroute. Then again, this routing gives IL 83 travelers two truss bridges instead of none.


The view north from the unnumbered stretch of Cal-Sag Rd. just east of where IL 83 turns off.


Looking east from this truss at the next one IL 83 SB will cross, along with IL 50 (see big link at bottom).


Back up to 127th St., heading west (IL 83 NB) to Cal-Sag Rd.


The road may be Cal-Sag, but the street signs don't tell you that. Then again, this neighborhood doesn't appear to be in Palos Heights, Crestwood, or Alsip, but some unincorporated limbo between all three, so maybe there's no definite answer.


Temporary, but I like it.


Now with IL 171, IL 83 crosses the Cal-Sag Channel for the third time. If it took a logical routing, though, this would be its only crossing. Again, I like the bridges and all, but I'm not a motorist trying to get somewhere.


Looking west at the last crossing before the Cal-Sag Channel dumps into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, carrying the Canadian National Railway. The second photo looks down the tracks just north of where IL 171 leaves.


Continuing across the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, so named because it was constructed primarily to bring Chicago's (treated) sewer output to the Mississippi River watershed, preserving Lake Michigan as Chicago's supply of drinking water. Obviously, we now live in enlightened times, but that was a big step forward from living on the brink of cholera. This canal was part of the system that famously reversed the flow of the Chicago River to bring water away from Lake Michigan to the canal, across the continental divide, to the Des Plaines River.


The reflectors are long gone, but the old arrow stands proudly on the IL 83 SB ramp to I-55 SB.


Courtesy Doug Kerr, IL 83 SB/IL 72 WB and the reverse direction, at either end of a very short concurrency in Elk Grove Village.


IL 83 is feeling rather unwell at Pauline Ave. in Buffalo Grove. The rounded NB shield to the north leaves me feeling rather unwell.

IL 50 and IL 83/50

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