66 Corridor project appears to be dead

Interstate 66

During the gap between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, federal officials apparently nixed a long-simmering 66 Corridor interstate proposal, aka Interstate 66, that would have linked Paducah, Kentucky, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

The Associated Press first broke the story. The 66 Corridor plan had bounced around for more than two decades. This part of the story got my attention:

[…] Kentucky withdrew its support for what was once envisioned as a coast-to-coast interstate that would invoke the iconic cross-country Route 66.

The Paducah Sun, days later, invoked the same sort of theme during a follow-up story:

To paraphrase a once-popular song, it doesn’t appear drivers in western Kentucky are going to “get their kicks on Corridor 66” any time soon. […] The project was envisioned as a coast-to-coast interstate along the lines of cross-country U.S. 66.

Strangely, a 66 Corridor website touting the project is still live. So is the Interstate 66 booster site.

The cost and taking the Interstate through the Shawnee National Forest ultimately doomed the project. Illinois highway officials now have set their sights on a shorter highway that would connect Interstate 57 and Illinois 146, called the Shawnee Parkway.

Interstate 66 already exists, but it runs only 76 miles from northern Virginia to Washington, D.C. Based on my Twitter feed, it often attracts the ire of motorists in the Beltway because of chronic traffic problems.

The Interstate 66 page on Wikipedia indicates the original Interstate 66 extension had a tough road to hoe because of lack of traffic in its proposed path, lack of interest in the West, and a poorly conceived idea to route the interstate through Death Valley National Park, which the National Park Service strongly opposed.

And — you can see a pattern here — “The choice for the number 66 was to capitalize on U.S. Route 66 (US 66).”

I remember the Interstate 66 proposal causingconsternation with hard-core Route 66 aficionados during the late 1990s, but it eventually fell off their radar.

I think it eventually dawned on them such a big project appeared unlikely. Secondly, the real Route 66 was going through a renaissance that continues to this day, and nearly all tourists would have little trouble distinguishing Route 66 from Interstate 66 — when and if the latter happened.

It turns out they were right.

(Image of the proposed Interstate 66 sign via Wikimedia Commons)

4 thoughts on “66 Corridor project appears to be dead

  1. Kentucky dropped out? Hee hee hee — it threatened to drop out of the U.S. Route System during the planning stages of Route 66 for similar reasons! Trust huffy Kentucky to stay true to form … ;D But in this case, Kentucky may have had a point: the Interstate 66 Corridor wasn’t well thought out in terms of potential traffic and probably deserved to die. Unlike Route 66, which still has a firm claim on the imagination and steady tourist interest.

  2. I’m glad to hear this. I hope the proposal stays dead forever. We don’t need anymore interstate highways. The overbuilt, bloated system that we have now has already cost us more than we ever imagined — not just in dollars & cents — and is already falling apart because we no longer have the money to maintain it all. Another interstate highway is just a pork-barrel barrel project — the only beneficiaries are government contractors who engorge themselves by feeding at the public trough — more taxpayer money wasted. Let ’em eat cake, I say. The use the mystique of Route 66 to drum up support for the new highway was a cheap and cynical ploy. I regard with satisfaction that it flopped like a dead souffle!

  3. There is absolutely nothing with having an Interstate 66, but it should extend from its current terminus of I-81 west along US 48/50 in West Virginia, then along US 50 to around Jefferson City, Missouri, then US 54 to the Kansas state line, and US 400 across Kansas, then to Pueblo, Colorado and ending at Grand Junction, Colorado at I-70. This has absolutely nothing to do with the iconic I-66. This is just the proper placement for I-66.

  4. Correction: There is absolutely nothing with having an Interstate 66, but it should extend from its current terminus of I-81 west along US 48/50 in West Virginia, then along US 50 to around Jefferson City, Missouri, then US 54 to the Kansas state line, and US 400 across Kansas, then to Pueblo, Colorado and ending at Grand Junction, Colorado at I-70. This has absolutely nothing to do with the iconic US 66. This is just the proper placement for I-66

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