Cortland Street Bridge Between Bucktown and Lincoln Park Will Stay Closed to Cars for Years

The Cortland Street Bridge, a 124-year-old structure spanning the Chicago River between Bucktown and Lincoln Park, will stay closed to vehicle traffic for multiple years, the city's Department of Transportation announced this week, after engineers found the structure's problems are worse than originally believed.

The bridge closed to cars last September for what was supposed to be a rehabilitation project wrapping up by 2027. City transportation officials now say a new structural assessment found the bridge "can no longer safely support vehicular traffic in its current condition" and that the repair work needed is far more extensive than the original plan called for.

"These early bridges were designed in a way that makes critical structural components extremely difficult to access for inspection, maintenance and repair," department spokesperson Erica Schroeder said in an email. The Cortland bridge, which opened to the public in the early 1900s, was one of the city's first trunnion bascule bridges, a movable-bridge design that makes routine inspection unusually difficult.

As of May, work on the bridge included pier protection, bridge house stabilization, painting and seawall repairs. Schroeder said the department will release a firmer timeline once the expanded scope of work is finalized. For now, the north sidewalk stays open to pedestrians and cyclists, while drivers have no path across at Cortland.

The extended closure adds to a stretch of bridge shutdowns that have squeezed traffic across the North Side river crossings over the past year. Andrew Moore, who has lived in the area for 25 years and works in hospitality, used to cross the Cortland bridge several times a week to get to his job. During a six-month closure in 2015, he rerouted through Webster, Fullerton and North avenues. This time, with construction also underway on Halsted and Cortland streets, he said he avoids western Lincoln Park entirely.

"Chicago is already short on east-west arteries over the river," Moore said. "I know that the Cortland Bridge is historic, but I think the city needs to tear it down and replace it with a bridge similar to North Avenue. This is just another sign of poor and neglectful infrastructure planning."

Jonathan Meyer, who has lived in Lincoln Park for more than a decade, used the bridge to visit family in the suburbs. With Cortland and other nearby crossings closed, he said finding a reliable route east or west of the neighborhood has gotten harder by the month.

"It's just so time consuming and frustrating," Meyer said. "It seems that CDOT didn't consider these issues when they made decisions about shutting down bridges, or at least apparently didn't think ahead to what was going to be the consequence on traffic."

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), whose ward includes part of the affected area, pressed the transportation department for a clear scope of work and a traffic mitigation plan in an online update posted Monday. "I understand the need to address these structural issues and to complete rehabilitation safely," Hopkins wrote. "However, the community has now lived with this closure for nearly a year, and there is still no clear scope of work or timeline for reopening the bridge."

Hopkins pushed an ordinance through City Council in February, after a string of bridge closures caused backups downtown and on the North Side, requiring the transportation department to lay out a traffic mitigation plan before closing any bridge for more than 30 days. Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd), whose ward also touches the closure area, supported that measure and said in a newsletter sent Thursday that the Cortland project has been handled without "sufficient transparency" and has added to congestion for residents and local businesses.

Not everyone crossing the bridge is upset. With cars barred, cyclists have been using the span as a car-free route between the two neighborhoods, and the crossing has been quieter for anyone on two wheels or on foot since the closure began.

The transportation department has not set a date for when it will release the revised project timeline or cost estimate. Until then, the bridge remains open only to pedestrians and cyclists on its north sidewalk, and drivers in Bucktown and Lincoln Park are left routing around a crossing that, as of this week, has no confirmed reopening date.