As the weather has been progressively getting colder and the threat of larger snow storms is looming, there has been an uptick in the amount of construction happening around DePaul Prep. In the month of November alone, there has been work done on Western, Irving Park, Belmont, Rockwell, and Peterson— which are all popular roads that students take to get to and from school. This has led to more traffic than usual. In the coming months with the Kennedy expressway resurfacing project, it is apparent that the city still has plans to keep construction going, even on streets that might at first glance seem perfectly fine.

Junior Angelina Girardin, who lives around 15 minutes from school with traffic has noticed a considerable increase in the time it takes her to get to school. She stated, “I have to leave my house almost 20 minutes earlier than I used to because of the traffic caused by Irving Park’s construction.” Girardin said that this has caused her to lose sleep as she needs to get up earlier and it feels like the same streets are torn up every year, with no improvements made. She has even been late to school on a few occasions leading her to get tardy slips. She stated that she hopes that the construction ends soon and the city finds a more efficient way to complete these projects, such as completing them during the summer.

Ira Leibold is the Vice President of construction at Banner Multifamily and he has been in this position for 19 years. He explained that his workers contribute to traffic by workers moving to and from the work sites and transporting the materials needed to complete their projects. He said that construction in Chicago is “complex due to having to time to start projects as they need to be done in the warmer months, usually April-November.”

Leibold further explained that streets that may look like they have nothing wrong with them aren’t always as they seem. He said that, “Sometimes there are pipes or cables buried below seemingly fine streets, when the road surface or pipes/cables need to be repaired the street work becomes inherent.” This means that streets that students deem to be in perfect condition could really be the opposite, and could also face being reconstructed.

Former Alderman of the 48th ward Harry Osterman stated that a lot has happened in the construction world in the last few years. There was a massive construction strike in 2022 where a majority of the construction companies went on strike, and paused their work. There was also a period of lacking concrete work, where sub par work was done on the streets, leading to roads needing to be re done. These two occurrences caused there to be a backlog of work that needs to be done and many companies are at least a year behind in their work.

Osterman’s belief is that “The city is trying to get as much work done as possible before the weather gets too cold for work to be done.” He stated that he doesn’t believe that this is the most effective way to get these big projects done. He instead believes that “it would be better to map out what needs to be done and do it all year round so that it would be done efficiently and not be rushed at the end of fall just before winter.”

As for the students who end up running late, he stated that this was a glance into the real world and there isn’t much one can do when these types of projects are underway. He said that the best bet to better inform students is for the city to inform DePaul Prep when these sorts of projects are going to be taking place so that students can plan accordingly.

As the temperatures drop and more projects are being crammed at the last minute, students will have to prepare for longer commute times than they anticipated. There isn’t a real way to combat this, so students will have to get used to leaving their homes earlier, to avoid the traffic that comes with these projects.