Interstate 72 in Illinois

 

I-72
Get started Hannibal
End champagne
Length 187 mi
Length 301 km
Route
QuincyJacksonville

Springfield

Decatur

champagne

Interstate 72 or I -72 is an Interstate Highway in the United States, located mostly in the state of Illinois and a small portion in Missouri. The highway forms an east-west route in central Illinois and runs from Hannibal on the Mississippi River to Champaign in the east of the state. Interstate 72 is 301 kilometers long.

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Travel directions

The highway just begins in Missouri, in the town of Hannibal. Hannibal is a regional town on the Mississippi River. Here , US 36 becomes I-72. I-72 has only 2 exits in Missouri before the highway crosses the Mississippi River via the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge, and enters Illinois. Via a TOTSO, I-72 exits east at the hamlet of Munger. To the north goes Interstate 172, which leads to the town of Quincy. At Kinderhook one leaves the plains of the Mississippi and arrives at a slightly higher plateau. It passes through the vast plains of the Midwest, although there are small forests from time to time. The underlying road network is in a grid pattern.

At Valley City one crosses the Illinois River. The highway has a wide median strip. At Jacksonville you cross the US 67, which was briefly designed as a highway here. Jacksonville is a regional town, and the only place of significance between Springfield and Hannibal. The route on I-72 is quite monotonous and flat. One then arrives at Springfield, a city of 116,000 inhabitants, and also the capital of Illinois. On the south side of town, I-72 merges with Interstate 55, after which both roads are double-numbered. Heading south, I-55 leads to Saint Louis. After a few miles, I-72 turns east and I-55 continues straight toward Chicago.

The section east of Springfield is also quite monotonous, and straight. One then arrives at Decatur, a medium-sized city with 82,000 inhabitants. This is where I-72 curves north around it. Decatur is an important junction for the secondary road network, including the US 51 that runs towards Bloomington. In Champaign, one crosses Interstate 57, which runs from the south of the state toward Chicago. A kilometer away, I-72 ends in the center of Champaign, which forms a small conurbation with Urbana.

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History

In the early 1970s, sometime between 1968 and 1973, the first section of I-72 was completed, a 16-mile stretch between Monticello and Champaign. The Springfield bypass was already completed as I-55. In November 1976 the route between Springfield and Monticello was also completed. The part west of Springfield was originally US 36, in 1977 this was completed 47 kilometers between Jacksonville and Springfield. On November 22, 1991, the remainder of the Hull-Jacksonville route opened to traffic for some 60 miles. From 1995 this section was also numbered as I-72. In 2000, the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River opened to traffic, completing I-72 in its current form.

Future

It is possible that I-72 will continue to Interstate 35 in Missouri, about 150 miles to the west. But even then, the I-72 does not yet fulfill a major through-function.

Lane Configuration

From Unpleasant Lanes Comments
exit 0 Exit 182 2×2

Congestion

Traffic jams on I-72 are very rare. The highway is mostly lightly used, especially west of Springfield, but also elsewhere on the route. Only the double numbering with I-55 around Springfield is a bit busier.

Connections & traffic intensities

# destination AADT
1 Hull 13,000
4 Quincy 10,300
10 Payson, Hull 6.300
20 Barry 5,500
31 Pittsfield, New Salem 4,800
35 Pittsfield, Griggsville 6.200
46 Bluffs, Detroit 6.700
52 Winchester 6.200
60 Alton, Beardstown, Jacksonville 8.100
64 Alton, Jacksonville 7,400
68 Jacksonville 12,400
76 Ashland, Alexander 13,000
82 New Berlin 14,000
91 Springfield, Wabash Avenue 15,700
93 Springfield 33.100
96 Springfield, MacArthur Boulevard 33.100
97 St. Louis 52,200
94 Springfield, Stevenson Drive 52,200
96 Springfield, South Grand Avenue 52,200
103 Chicago 13,200
104 Camp Butler 13,200
108 Riverton, Dawson 12,400
114 Buffalo, Mechanicsburg, Dawson 12,300
122 mt. Auburn, Illiopolis 13,500
128 Niantic 11,600
133 Decatur, Panama 11,300
138 Decatur, Lincoln 10,500
141 Bloomington, Decatur 11,300
144 Oreana, Decatur 10,200
150 Argentina 10,300
156 Cisco, Weldon 9,900
164 Monticello 9,800
166 Monticello 13,500
169 White Heath Road 13,500
172 Clinton 13,300
176 Mahomet 15,000
182 Memphis, Chicago

Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge

Stan MusialVeterans Memorial Bridge
Spans Mississippi River
Lanes 2×2
Total length 854 meters
Main span 457 meters
Bridge deck height 23 meters
Opening 09-02-2014
Traffic intensity ? mvt/day
Location Map

The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge is a cable- stayed bridge in the United States, located in St. Louis on the border of Missouri and Illinois.

Characteristics

The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge spans the Mississippi River in St. Louis, which locally forms the border between the states of Missouri and Illinois. The cable- stayed bridge has a total length of 854 meters and a main span of 457 meters. The free passage under the bridge is 23 meters. The bridge pylons are 133 meters high. Interstate 70 in Missouri runs across the bridge. The bridge stands 3 kilometers north of the Poplar Street Bridge.

History

In 1967, the Poplar Street Bridge between St. Louis and East St. Louis opened to traffic, carrying the regional commuter and through north-south traffic in the region. The bridge was overloaded, mainly from a tight junction on the St. Louis side. The new bridge relieves the Poplar Street Bridge (PSB).

The construction of the bridge started on April 19, 2010. The bridge is constructed with 2×2 lanes with a space reservationfor 2×3 lanes. A bridge with 2×4 lanes was originally planned, but the cost turned out to be too high. Alternatively, the bridge has been designed in such a way that a parallel bridge can be built next to it, so that a double span with 12 lanes can be realized, but the chance that this will be necessary in the foreseeable future is small. The bridge was opened to traffic on 9 February 2014. The bridge itself cost $230 million to build, the entire project including the rerouting of I-70 over a long overpass on the Illinois side and the construction of two new interchanges cost $667 million. When opened, it was the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States. At that time, there were at least 50 larger cable-stayed bridges on a global scale.

A petition asked for the bridge to be called the Veterans Memorial Bridge, but there is already a bridge of that name in St. Louis. On July 12, 2013, the name Stan Musial Bridge was approved by President Obama. The bridge is named after Stanisław Franciszek Musiał (1920-2013), better known as Stan Musial, a baseball player and World War II veteran.

Traffic intensities

On the first working day after opening, 33,000 vehicles drove over the bridge.

Interstate 72 in Illinois