History
Prior to its designation as an Interstate Highway, the route was known as IL 5, and before that, IL 190.
The reason for I-88's original designation and continued existence as an Interstate has to do with a technicality in the old National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL). Originally passed in 1973, NMSL was amended in 1987 to permit 65-mph (105 km/h) speed limits on rural stretches of Interstate Highways only. In spite of the fact that IL 5 was fully up to Interstate standards, it still had to carry a 55 mph (88 km/h) limit because of this wording in NMSL. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (ISTHA) petitioned the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to re-designate IL 5 as an Interstate, and in 1987, AASHTO approved the request and assigned the Interstate 88 numbering to the highway. NMSL would be completely repealed only eight years later in 1995, but the I-88 shields remain up to this day, even though Illinois 110 shields are being posted throughout the entire Illinois I-88, since it is now part of the Chicago to Kansas City Expressway project, bannered with special "CKC" logos.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 88 (west)
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—David Hume (1711–1776)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)