Future
The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) launched a series of studies to help facilitate access to west central Illinois, colloquially named Forgottonia for the lack of highways through the region. Currently in progress are upgrades (to a four-lane expressway) of U.S. Highway 67 from U.S. Highway 34 in Monmouth (near Galesburg) south to Macomb, and U.S. 67 from Macomb south to Alton, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Also underway is a similar upgrade of Illinois 336 from Quincy to Macomb.
The Peoria-to-Macomb study involves an eastern link from Macomb to Peoria alongside existing U.S. Route 136. The corridor being studied runs from U.S. 67 east to Interstate 474, and has been studied since the 1950s by Illinois and Federal agencies as a potential link between Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, the Chicago-Kansas City Expressway. As of May 2006, the corridor study had identified two alternatives for Illinois 336. The route would be a limited access freeway for a few miles outside of Macomb to Bardolph, and again for a few miles outside of Peoria, east of Hanna City. For either alternative, Illinois 336 would be constructed as an expressway between Hanna City and Bardolph. In Illinois, an expressway allows partial-access to the highway, with direct access to the expressway from private residences and fields, while retaining interchanges and frontage roads for businesses and arterial state routes.
The completion of Illinois 336 would also relieve congestion on U.S. Route 24, currently the only direct route between Peoria and Quincy. It would also allow Peoria to Quincy traffic to avoid the alternate route — Interstate 155 south to Interstate 55 through Springfield, to Interstate 72 west. This combination of highways is currently the fastest route between Peoria and Quincy. Illinois 336 would shave at least 50 miles (81 km) and up to an hour off the trip. Currently, both U.S. 24 and the Interstate 155/55/72 routes require upwards of 3.25 hours of travel.
This route would also provide a faster route from Peoria to reach cities such as Kansas City and Denver.
There have also been discussions on using future Illinois 336 for a Peoria-to-Chicago Highway but is still being debated.
Read more about this topic: Illinois Route 336
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“It is given to few to add the store of knowledge, to strike new springs of thought, or to shape new forms of beauty. But so sure as it is that men live not by bread, but by ideas, so sure is it that the future of the world lies in the hands of those who are able to carry the interpretation of nature a step further than their predecessors.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“I am always glad to think that my education was, for the most part, informal, and had not the slightest reference to a future business career. It left me free and untrammeled to approach my business problems without the limiting influence of specific training.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)