Who is the stevenson expressway named after

The route follows Interstate 88 into the western part of Illinois before connecting with other interstates and highways. Travelers are sometimes confused by the designation found on roadway signs that the northbound Dan Ryan Expressway is the westbound I and I The reason for this is the following.

The interstates I and I cross the country in an east-west direction, generally north of Chicago. However, both interstates move to the south in the Chicago area to go around Lake Michigan as they cross the country.

For example, I goes west from Detroit across the state of Michigan, then around Lake Michigan, and joins with westbound I in Indiana before entering Illinois on the Kingery Expressway. Therefore the northbound orientation of these expressways is I westbound from the perspective of the interstate system in which I crosses the country from east to west.

The eastern terminus of the Stevenson Expressway is located at U. Highway 41 Lake Shore Drive. This is a distance of convert History The expressway opened on October 24 , as the Southwest Expressway. It was renamed after Adlai E. Stevenson Expressway ] ] the former governor of Illinois, on September 1, a month and a half after his death. The Stevenson's original termini were U. In —, the expressway was completely rebuilt from Central Avenue north to Lake Shore Drive, including the ramps to the Dan Ryan.

IDOT was criticized at the time for not adding a fourth lane in each direction to the highway. The Kingery Highway originally called the Tri-State Highway opened in as part of a long-planned metropolitan bypass, and connected with the Bishop Ford Freeway known as Calumet Expressway until Milwaukee-bound traffic was relieved with the opening of the Edens Expressway now I in Urban expressways provided greater challenges.

A West Side superhighway, heir to the Plan of Chicago 's vision of a Congress Street arterial axis, had been tied to transit improvements with the creation in of the city's Department of Subways and Superhighways. Funding agreements between the city, county, and state finally fell into place in the late s and construction began on the Eisenhower originally Congress Expressway, which opened in sections between and This project included construction of the north-south portion of Wacker Drive.

Cook County Chairman Daniel Ryan engineered passage of a massive bond issue in , expediting construction of other expressways. By the time Congress created the Interstate Highway System in , nearly all Chicago-area expressways were laid out, but federal funding pushed construction into high gear.

The Dan Ryan Expressway opened to 95th Street in — Much of cross-country Interstate 80, skirting the south edge of the metropolitan area, opened at the same time. The design of Chicago expressways was straightforward, graced by neither the architectural detailing found along Lake Shore Drive nor the soaring ramps built on California freeways.