Multilevel streets in Chicago

The most famous and longest of these is Wacker Drive, which replaced the South Water Street Market upon its 1926 completion.

[1] The resulting bi-level street has an upper-level riverfront boulevard, a lower-level roadway for commercial and through traffic, and a recreational walkway at water level.

After about 1890, special interest groups, including recreational bicyclists, farmers delivering harvested crops to market, and motorists, began to mount support for concrete paving to replace the previously common dirt roads.

On January 3, 2005, the upper and lower levels were closed at Kinzie Street for reconstruction (in conjunction with the Trump Tower Chicago development) but have since been reopened.

The city's famed Billy Goat Tavern, immortalized by John Belushi in a Saturday Night Live sketch as the Olympia Cafe,[6] is located on the lower level of Michigan Avenue.