Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

August 6, 2005: East of Peoria, two interchanges in a row on I-74 are for other interstates, I-474 and I-155.

I-74 is Iowa’s connection through the southern part of the old Northwest Territory. It’s only in the state for a few miles. It would have made more sense to send it around the Quad Cities on what is I-280, but it was not to be. Illinois’ effort to put I-80 on that route drew enough of an outcry from Iowa that the interstate routings there are now locked in place.

Today, I-74 has some of the oldest bridges in the interstate system, the ones across the Mississippi River built in 1935 and 1959.

While Cincinnati, the eastern end of I-74, isn’t quite Southern, there is one little connection to the disjointed segments in North Carolina: Near Exit 1 in Davenport is Iowa’s only freestanding Chick-Fil-A.

October 15, 2009: South end of US 73 on the western edge of the Kansas City metro. The location changed a few years ago, after Kansas moved the remaining independent pieces of US 24/40 east of KS 7 onto I-70.

US 73 should have been in Iowa. In 1934, the state even created an IA 73 in the hope of an immediate upgrade. Unfortunately, US 73 had already been extended through Nebraska by then, and Iowa got US 59 instead.

July 16, 2008: East end of US 54 in western Illinois. It used to go to Chicago; a piece that doesn’t stick closely to the interstates is still IL 54. US 36 was signed as the freeway route and I-72 was added later, but there are significant stretches where it could be returned to the two-lane route.

The “54” is normal size. The others are jumbo for interstates, although this is the intersecting road. Illinois puts its name on its state route shields (has to, with Indiana’s also being square) but not the interstates.

May 9, 2007: Bemidji, Minnesota. Northernmost point traveled on US 71, less than 120 miles from Canada.

My southernmost point on US 71 is in the Shreveport area.

July 15, 2008 and June 9, 2011: Split shields in downtown Indianapolis and St. Louis. Weird, aren’t they?

I’ve been on I-70 from the west edge of Denver to the east I-55 split and from Indianapolis to Fredericksburg MD, leaving gaps at both ends and the middle.

May 5, 2009: Kansas City, Kansas. This is after the rerouting of US 24/40 onto I-70 in KCK, taking away the independent segment of those routes east of US 73/KS 7. US 69 and 169 bump against each other repeatedly in the KC area. The numbers have even swapped roads a few times. There are some ways to iron it out — without dumping more onto the interstates, I might add — but it’s unlikely to happen.

I’ve traveled every mile of US 69 from the Texas/Oklahoma state line to its north end in Albert Lea.

June 25, 2009: Sideling Hill cut on I-68 in western Maryland. Sadly, we did not have time to stop at the visitors center, which closed permanently six weeks later. Here’s a description of the geographical features.

This trip also gave me a stretch of US 40 in Maryland, so now I’ve been on it for some length in every state although some of those are interstate-only.