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:
“Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter’s walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow. Ride, boldly ride, the shade replied, in search of El Dorado.”
—Leigh Brackett (1915–1978)
“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)