Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Chicagoans have been dodging giant potholes on Lake Shore Drive and numerous other major thoroughfares, but down where the city hopes to hold the Olympics in seven years, some not-so-well-traveled streets are getting special treatment.

The reason is simple. The International Olympic Committee is coming to town on April 2. The committee will eventually choose the location for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Trucks and heavy machinery were seen all around Washington Park Thursday morning, and crews were ready to improve the streets around the South Side park, where Mayor Richard M. Daley wants the Olympic stadium to be built.

Early Thursday, crews were resurfacing Rainey Drive, a winding road that runs between Cottage Grove Avenue and King Drive.

The city confirms it diverted crews to Washington Park. The park project was part of a plan to resurface 39 miles of city streets, and that the machinery and workers are repaving roads in the park first because of a visit next month by the International Olympic Committee.

"We did want to complete the projects before the IOC visit," said Brian Steele from the Chicago Department of Transportation.

It's crunch time for the city's Olympic bid. The committee will vote on Oct. 2 whether Chicago will host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, or whether it will be Rio de Janeiro, Madrid or Tokyo, and for this visit, the city wants committee members to like what they see.

But for many Chicagoans, potholes in their own neighborhoods and on the roads they travel every day are a far greater concern, and the rush to repave obscure roads in Washington Park will likely annoy more than a few motorists.

Sylvester Dorsey is a south sider who's had to replace three tires totaling $400 dollars this pothole season. He says streets that don't run through Washington Park are much worse. He's not happy with the park project but says he understands it.

"The Olympics are big money and yeah, they're worried about it," said Dorsey.

"Just to make it look pretty for the Olympic Committee? I think that's silly," Dorsey added.

Some cynics are saying that while a new and super smooth roadway was being created for IOC officials who'll be sniffing around Chicago, crews could have been fixing potholes on more heavily traveled streets.

Not so, according to the city. Officials say pothole crews have also been out in force all over town even as this project was getting started.

Transportation Commissioner Thomas Byrne said the city had been forced to patch thousands of potholes rather than resurface streets because of a three-year decline in state funding for paving arterial roads.

Just this week, CBS 2 showed two crater-sized holes in the 2600 block of West Fullerton Avenue. One of them was about 37 inches long, 17 inches wide and 6 inches deep. The other was 48 inches across and 31 inches the other way, and had two tires sitting in it.

Across from the site of the Olympic stadium, there is a pothole 16 inches deep, which will have disappeared just in time for the IOC visit.

"At one point is it no longer a pothole and almost a crater?" Domino's pizza shop owner Ramon De Leon said to CBS 2 earlier in the week.

Potholes like the ones on Fullerton Avenue can cause severe damage to cars.

"For the streets in Washington Park, we received multiple 311 calls about potholes, including one call that indicated motorists were swerving into oncoming traffic trying to avoid the potholes," said Steele.

The city also divulged that the work in Washington Park has commenced because they were able to get an asphalt plant to open early especially for the park road resurfacing project. 

CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Mike Parker, and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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