Interstate 94 in Illinois

According to bestitude, Interstate 94 or I -94 is an Interstate Highway in the US state of Illinois. The highway runs its entire distance through the Chicago suburban area. The route forms the northern artery of the city, and is double-numbered with Interstate 90 in Chicago. The route is 126 kilometers long.

Travel directions

Interstate 94 in Wisconsin enters the state of Illinois at Winthrop Harbor, then runs due south in 2×3 lanes. This is the only connection between Chicago and Milwaukee. I-94 is a toll road, the Tri-State Tollway, opening up the northern suburbs located on Lake Michigan, extending 60 kilometers from Chicago. The first larger suburb is Waukegan, with 94,000 inhabitants. Parallel to I-94 is US 41, a major highway. The service area near Lake Forest has a building over the highway. The suburbs here are still fairly sparsely populated, with often wide green belts between the various suburbs, so that the whole is not yet very integrated. That’s only true from Deerfield, where I-94 turns southeast, while Interstate 294 begins here, forming the western bypass around Chicago, also a toll road.

Just after this is the last toll plaza of the I-94, and the highway will become toll-free. In Northbrook, US 41 merges with I-94. The road is then called the Edens Expressway. There are still 2×3 lanes available. One passes through the wooded older suburbs of Chicago. From Skokie, the neighborhoods are built up more densely, in a tighter grid model, this is where the real Chicago begins. After traveling a few miles within the city limits, I-90 merges, coming in from Rockford and Madison. The highway will then have 2×5 lanes with 2 interchangeable lanes, and a railway line in the central reservation. The highway here is called the Kennedy Expressway. Chicago is densely populated, with many detached houses built almost abutting each other. From the highway, the skyline is already visible in the distance, which is dominated by the 442-meter high Sears Tower. One then comes along the Chicago River, where industry is located.

The skyline slowly approaches, only to tower over the highway. The highway is below ground level, and is partially tunnelled. A section with an extreme exit density begins along the west side of a center, with 8 exits within a kilometer. Significant traffic jams can arise here because the underlying road network cannot process all the turning traffic, in combination with access roads that merge to the left. The last of these fast-track exits is the interchange with Interstate 290, the Eisenhower Expressway, which leads to the western neighborhoods and suburbs. This junction is a tight turbine junction.

The highway is then called the Dan Ryan Expressway and has 2×4 lanes. On the south side of downtown, one crosses Interstate 55, which leads to the state capital Springfield and Saint Louis. The highway then has 2×4 lanes with a railway in the central reservation. This is being converted to a 3+4+4+3 lane system. It then comes to the south of the city, and Interstate 90 branches off to Gary. The I-94 then continues further south, which actually doesn’t belong in the numbering system, with 2×4 lanes. A little further south of the city, the highway splits into Interstate 57 heading south to Memphis, and I-94 southeast toward the southern suburbs along the Indiana border.

The highway is then called the Bishop Ford Freeway, and then has only 2×2 lanes. The I-94 is less important here, as the through traffic can be shorter to the east via the I-90 that exited earlier. A little further on, the road widens again to 2×3 lanes, and the road runs through an industrial area. At South Holland, I-94 merges with Interstate 80, turning east. SR-394 continues straight ahead, to further suburbs to the south. I-80 comes from Davenport and is one of the busiest freight corridors in the United States. There are then 2×5 lanes available. A little further on follows the border with Indiana, where Interstate 94 in Indiana andInterstate 80 in Indiana continues to various cities such as Indianapolis, Cleveland and Detroit.

History

According to biotionary, on December 20, 1951, the Edens Expressway opened to traffic for 14 miles, Chicago’s first freeway. On August 28, 1958, the toll road portion of I-94 from the Wisconsin border to Highland Park opened to traffic for 30 miles. On November 5, 1960, the Kennedy Expressway opened to traffic. In 1962, the Dan Ryan Expressway in south Chicago opened to traffic. The Bishop Ford Freeway also opened to traffic in 1962.

Toll

The northernmost portion of I-94 is a toll road between the Wisconsin border and the Edens Expressway in Northbrook. The toll costs for a passenger car over the entire toll length are $4.70 in cash and $2.35 with an I-Pass. This amounts to $0.098 per kilometer in cash and $0.049 per kilometer with an I-Pass. This makes I-94 slightly more expensive than most other toll roads in the Chicago area. In 2012, toll costs almost doubled compared to 2011.

Congestion

I-94 is busy along the entire route. In particular, the section that is double-numbered with I-90 through Chicago has poor traffic for a large part of the day. Bottlenecks include the merging of I-90 and I-94, the interchange with I-290, and the exit ramps to downtown. The Dan Ryan Expressway is less prone to congestion than the Kennedy Expressway due to the larger number of available lanes and the presence of a parallel structure. The portion that is double-numbered with I-80 near the Indiana border has a high proportion of freight traffic.

Connections & traffic intensities