The death of Route 66 was inevitable. From its very birth it was a constantly changing road, evolving out of a loose collection of trails and locally paved pathways into a mammoth river of concrete shunning lesser roads in favor of speed and safety. For that evolution to continue, the interstates had to be born to replace them.
The inspiration for and evolution of the Interstate Highway System is well taught and widely known. As many of the states gravitated towards four lane expressways, adding lanes to most U.S. highways and departing from the previous downtown alignments in favor of quicker rural bypasses, motorists began to embrace this piecemeal interstate system and the quicker travel times it produced. At the same time the United States went to war, sending a generation to island hop in the Pacific and storm eastward in Europe, and that latter group, led by General Dwight Eisenhower, arrived in the homeland of their foe to witness the greatest accomplishment in modern highway engineering: the German Autobahn. Eisenhower was inspired, and that feeling would heavily impact his presidency a decade later.
While the Autobahn impressed many a U.S. G.I., the idea was nothing new to many back home in the Rust Belt. The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940, attracting crowds in its first weekend that caused such massive backups that the wait to exit the highway was often several hours long as exhausted workers hurried to collect tolls. Initial estimates of just over a million travelers in its first year were dwarfed by the actual total of 2.4 million, a staggering amount that proved the dire prediction of the U.S. Bureau of Roads incorrect: the public would support tolled roads. In fact, they embraced the Turnpike, dazzled by the speed and efficiency of this new creation: the freeway. Immediately Pennsylvania and other states began planning an expansion of the tollroad system, in particular a multi-state system that would link Pennsylvania with Cleveland, Indianapolis, Saint Louis, Chicago and New York.
World War II postponed the plans of the turnpike proponents, and the war's greatest victor ended them completely a few years later. As states drug their heels on tollway expansion, Eisenhower, taken in by the efficiency and beauty of the German roads and the ease in which his troops were able to move about the country on them, planned an ambitious movement that would put the U.S. Highway System to shame.
In 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act was signed into law calling for construction of a massive coast-to-coast web of multi-lane, closed-access freeways. Inspired by his German experiences, President Eisenhower pushed for the system to aid in defense mobilization, providing states with ninety percent of the necessary funding in order to jump start the program. It was a massive success as the nation was immediately transformed into the home of thousands of miles of superhighways, with suburbs expanding out along the frontage of these highways and drawing Americans out of packed city neighborhoods. Nationwide travel times, already lessened by the four-lane US highways, shrunk even further as smoother surfaces, wider bypasses and higher speeds grew up along side the baby boomers.
Interstates in the Land of Lincoln
In Illinois, many of the US highways would be mirrored by new Interstates. US 40 would be joined by another coast-to-coast route, Interstate 70, while Interstate 64 followed US 50 in the west and US 460 in the east. I-57 took up much of the load for US 51 in the south and US 45 in the north, while I-74 would follow US 150 throughout its entire trip across the Prairie State. Most importantly, Route 66 in Illinois would be replaced by another palindromic number from Chicago to Saint Louis: Interstate 55.
It would take a number of interstates to replace the Mother Road across the nation: I-55 drops you off in Saint Louis at I-44, which takes you as far as Oklahoma City. From there I-40 bears the load until Barstow, California, where I-15 only takes you to San Bernardino. And to get to Santa Monica you still need to travel I-10.
Route 66 was spared immediate abandonment in Illinois thanks in part to the advanced condition of the road. More than a quarter-century after its birth, it was still the paramount corridor in the Land of Lincoln, and thus IDOT's attention (and time and resources) were first and foremost lavished upon the Mother Road. US 40 and 50, as in their early days, were forced to wait for four-lane enhancements, and by the time Illinois got around to them after the War it was too late; in Clinton County east of Saint Louis one can see remnants of the preparation for the four-lane expansion on the new alignment of US 50, with concrete poured for phantom bridges over various creeks and streams, but the pavement was never to be laid as the State put its efforts into construction of the new Interstate System. Lesser US routes were bypassed early by necessity, especially around major cities, while Route 66 was granted a temporary reprieve since her traffic was already speeding by much faster on four brand new lanes.
All good things must come to an end, though, and eventually the Mother Road gave way to Interstate 55 in Illinois. IDOT began construction on I-55 in the late fifties, first in the Chicago area where expansion of Route 66 to four lanes was more troublesome than in rural areas, and then in the Metro East where the newer four-lane could easily be converted. Other bypasses came next, with Springfield and Bloomington-Normal given a quicker way around town to the east and west respectively. Slowly the pavement sprung up in patches as two of Route 66's lanes would be destroyed to make way for two wider, brand new, concrete slabs with four lanes, broad shoulders and a wide median, and traffic would be diverted back and forth between the US highway and its replacement as more and more stretches of the interstate were slowly completed.
In several places Interstate 55 was built directly on top of Route 66. From Hamel on south into the Metro East the four-lane bypass was built later and to freeway standards even before the Interstate System was implemented. Here modern day travelers can see a much smaller median than normal for an interstate highway between Collinsville and Hamel as the road was denied room to expand was forced to follow older standards. Further into the Metro East the route was able to stretch out, following a path just north of the old U.S. 40/66 alignment (which cuts through the heart of the Cahokia Mounds historic site) and it takes on more of the appearance of a modern freeway. North of Springfield a few miles of four-lane 66 was covered as the road sped out of Chatham towards Chicago, and as Joliet Road heads out of its namesake toward the Second City another few miles of the interstate was laid upon its predecessor in the tight urban spaces of Will County.
The last piece of Interstate 55 was completed at the end of the 1970's in Livingston County and three years after its decertification the road was completely bypassed. IDOT had put the nail in the coffin in 1977, pulling down the Route 66 signs and ending a fifty-one year run as the Mother of all Highways in the Land of Lincoln.
I-55, while still a bland slab of an expressway at times, is admittedly superior to many of its brethren in Illinois. While I-57 to the east is a mostly boring, straight-arrow plunge into the south, I-55 has the luxury of curving through the heart of the state and around much more fertile ground for sightseeing. You can’t spot much of Champaign from Interstate 57, but the State Capital Dome can be viewed from I-55, as can downtown Chicago, Monks’ Mound, the Gateway International Raceway, and of course the Gateway Arch. Not to mention much of Route 66 and some of her landmarks: the Hamel Meramec Caverns Barn, the Our Lady of the Highways Shrine, Art’s Motel and Restaurant and magnificent Lake Springfield. In some ways it’s a blessed interstate.
Route 66 Today
In the early twenty-first century Historic Route 66 is still almost completely navigable in Illinois, with only ten or fifteen total miles of interstate travel necessary. In many rural places the road is only eight to ten feet from Interstate 55, with the remaining portion of the four-lane serving as a frontage road to the freeway. Often this road is rugged, poorly maintained and thus carries with it an odd and historic legitimacy. Elsewhere the road follows older two-lane paths, curving through lonely rural counties and through the hearts and downtowns of the state's largest communities. Occasionally, you even find an old, dangerously narrow stretch or a run of bumpy bricks. Whether trapped amidst the traffic of a six-lane freeway or cruising alone on a tree-shrouded stretch that only pedestrians should really brave, it’s still there, and it’s still the most fantastic road in the young history of the nation.
