The path to 200 years: State at heart of interstate system
Charles Rex Arbogast | AP
Its neighbor to the east may claim “The Crossroads of America” title, but by nearly any measure, Illinois is the heart of the U.S. Interstate system.
Illinois has the third highest total of Interstate routes and mileage. Only New York and California have more I-designated roadways, with 7- and 25-million more residents, respectively. Only Texas and California routes cover more mileage, though those states are 5- and 3-times larger by territory.
And the importance of the routes — many of which were designed to pass through or near Chicago, with its access to the global economy — further spell out the importance of Illinois as a hub of trans-U.S. travel. The two longest treks of the Interstate system, I-90 and I-80, pass through Illinois on their coast-to-coast journeys. And two key connections to the Gulf States, I-55 and I-65, reach their nadir in the Chicago area. Add in I-57, I-64, I-70 and I-94 and an Illinois driver can reach almost every population center in the nation by navigating one interchange.
“Illinois is at the heart of the country’s interstate highway system,” the Illinois Department of Transportation boasts. That was not without intent: When the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was authorized in 1956, Illinois was the fourth most-populous state in the nation (Texas and Florida leaped over Illinois in the rankings during the second-half of the 20th century).
Illinois was a key part of the economic structure of the country: Its endless fields a critical part of the food supply; its inland port a means for the Midwest industrial centers to reach the outside world; its trainyards the center by which the entire U.S. rail system operated around.
It was natural, then, that the original Interstate plan released in 1955 saw key arteries originate and pass through Illinois, including I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70, I-74, I-80, I-90 and I-94. Illinois was cementing its place as the heart of the nation’s roads.
As the Interstate system began to take shape, Illinois’ road budget began its long climb to the present-day $14.1 billion figure. Maintenance costs ballooned from $59.6 million to $128.1 million during the 1950s. A state commission recommended the formation of IDOT, bringing the transportation system, including the interstates, under a single office in Springfield.
When IDOT formed in 1972, only I-64 remained incomplete from the U.S. government’s original Interstate plan, and I-72, then spanning from Champaign to Springfield, had been added to the state’s growing highway system. Throughout this rapid transition of the Illinois’s highway system, the bane of existence for commuters in and around the Chicago area came into existence: the Illinois Tollway.
As the state struggled to complete modern highways during World War II, the first tollway commission was established, becoming the Illinois State Toll Highway Commission in 1953. The initial three toll roads, completed by 1958 – the Jane Addams, Tri-State and East-West Tollways – all were eventually rolled into the Interstate system as the nationwide spiderweb of superhighways began to take shape. Today, the re-christened Toll Authority has added I-355 and state Route 390 among the ranks of its administered roads.
By the early 1990s, the majority of the modern Illinois Interstate system was complete. As the USDOT planned supplementary highways in the 1960s and 1970s to fill in gaps between anchor roads of the original 1956 decree, Illinois laid down pavement over its vast farmlands. I-24 was completed in the south of the state, and the state’s portion of I-64 was completed in 1974. State Route 5, the original moniker of the East-West Tollway, saw a re-designation to I-88 in 1987 as Illinois sought to raise the speed limit on the route connecting Chicago to the Quad Cities.
With that, I-39 saw its first segment replace the existing U.S. 51 from U.S. 20 outside Rockford to Rochelle. While IDOT had requested I-39 to stretch from the Wisconsin border to Marion County, the length of the proposed highway was shortened through a number of revisions, with the final route ending at Bloomington. U.S. 51 was upgraded through to Decatur as part of the overhaul.
Since the completion of I-39 in 1992, Illinois has seen only one new Interstate: the 9/10ths of a mile I-41 in Lake County. That roadway came about as a construct of the Wisconsin DOT re-purposing U.S. 41, from the north suburbs of Chicago to Green Bay, into an Interstate of its own. Its brief stint in Illinois sees it paired with I-94 as it crosses the state line.
All told, 24 routes — 13 primary and 11 secondary — compose the modern Illinois Interstate, covering some 2,500 miles. And while Indiana may continue to lay claim to that “crossroads” crown, as Illinois celebrates 200 years — with nearly 1,000 more miles of blue-and-red-signed roadways than its eastern neighbor — its residents should know that it is still the true heart of America’s fascination with the highway.