The Fox Valley Freeway was a limited-access highway that was proposed in the 1960s as a bypass to Chicago. The highway would have joined with Interstate 55 near Plainfield, Illinois, continuing northwest and north along and west of the Fox River Valley (hence the name).
Like many proposed highways, this one brought a lot of opposition. In 1969, a group of concerned citizens from the Barrington area formed the Defenders of the Fox in response to the proposed Fox Valley Freeway. The group's mission was to protect and improve the environment in the ecosystem of the Fox River, its tributaries and watershed, and its first goal was to fight the freeway.
The idea of a western loop around the Chicago suburbs never totally died. In the 1990s, there were still a few legislators that pressed for more study of the Fox Valley Freeway as cities continue growing in the region.
Famous quotes containing the words fox, valley and/or freeway:
“Many scraps make a lot; fox furs, sewn together, make a fine robe.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things must live in such a light. O Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where was thy victory, then?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)