Des Plaines River Valley Bridge | |
---|---|
Des Plaines River Valley Bridge during Roll the Tollway ceremonies on November 11, 2007. | |
Coordinates | 41°40′22″N88°01′45″W / 41.6728°N 88.0293°W |
Carries | 6 lanes of ![]() ![]() |
Crosses | Des Plaines River, Illinois and Michigan Canal, Sanitary and Ship Canal, several railroad lines, Bluff Road, New Avenue, and a forest preserve |
Locale | Lemont, IL |
Maintained by | ISTHA |
Characteristics | |
Design | Post-tensioned concrete girder |
Total length | 1.3 miles (2.1 km) [1] |
History | |
Opened | November 12, 2007 |
Location | |
![]() |
The Des Plaines River Valley Bridge is a post-tensioned concrete girder toll bridge in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Illinois. It carries Interstate 355 (I-355) over the Des Plaines River, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Illinois and Michigan Canal, several railroad lines, Bluff Road, New Avenue and a forest preserve. It is officially named the Veterans Memorial Bridge. There are title plaques on the square pillars at the north and south entrances to the bridge. The bridge is 1.3 miles (2.1 km) long. [1]
The bridge consists of 34 piers from 10 to 75 feet (3 to 23 m) in height. A lower level bridge was also built for maintenance purposes, and to carry a bicycle trail that will connect other bicycle trails in the area. [1] The total height of the bridge ranges from 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 m). The height of the bridge allows the endangered Hine's Emerald Dragonfly to fly safely beneath the bridge, away from the flow of traffic. [2]
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the original routes of the Interstate Highway System; its final segment was opened in 1986. The second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States after I-90, it runs through many major cities, including Oakland, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Des Moines, and Toledo and passes within 10 miles (16 km) of Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City.
Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at 3,021 miles (4,862 km). It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and the Northeast, ending in Boston, Massachusetts. The highway serves 13 states and has 15 auxiliary routes, primarily in major cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester.
Interstate 355 (I-355), also known as the Veterans Memorial Tollway, is an Interstate Highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. Like most other toll roads in the northeastern portion of the state, I-355 is maintained by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (ISTHA). I-355 runs from I-80 in New Lenox north to I-290 in Itasca, a distance of 32.5 miles (52.3 km). With the exception of a four-mile (6.4 km) expansion in 2009, from U.S. Route 34 to 75th Street, the highway is six lanes wide for its entire length.
The Scudder Falls Bridge is a toll bridge that carries Interstate 295 (I-295) over the Delaware River, connecting Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with the Scudders Falls section of Ewing Township in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is maintained by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC). The original bridge was a plate girder bridge constructed from 1958 to 1961, and the current structure is a box-girder bridge that opened in 2019. Previously, the bridge was a toll-free crossing. However, this changed on July 14, 2019, when an all-electronic toll was levied for Pennsylvania-bound traffic; the toll can be paid using E-ZPass or Toll-by-Plate.
Interstate 294 (I-294) is a tolled auxiliary Interstate Highway in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Forming the southern portion of the Tri-State Tollway in Illinois, I-294 runs from South Holland at I-80/I-94 and Illinois Route 394 (IL 394) to Northbrook at I-94. I-294 is 53.42 miles (85.97 km) long; 5.32 miles (8.56 km) are shared with I-80. It serves as a bypass around the city of Chicago. I-294 is also the longest auxiliary route of I-94, at 10 miles (16 km) longer than I-494 in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. In addition, the tollway is the longest auxiliary Interstate Highway in Illinois, and it intersects the most primary Interstate Highways at six.
Illinois Route 171 (IL 171) is a 38.61-mile-long (62.14 km) north–south state highway in northeastern Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 6 (US 6) in Joliet north to Illinois Route 72 at the Chicago–Park Ridge border. The section of IL 171 on Archer Avenue from Joliet to Summit is historically significant, originating as a Native American trail, and later serving for a time as part of the first numbered highway between St. Louis and Chicago.
The old Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island, while the western end is on the Missouri shoreline. Its most notable feature is a 22-degree bend occurring at the middle of the crossing, which was found to be necessary during construction due to both the presence of a water intake and the inability of parts of the bedrock of the river to carry the weight of the bridge.
An Illinois Tollway oasis is a type of commercialized rest area sited over Interstate Highways that are part of the Illinois Tollway system in northern Illinois, United States. The four oases offer food and gasoline vendors and are found in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, DeKalb, and Belvidere. Although the oases date back to the original tollway construction in 1958, they were redeveloped in 2003–2005 by Wilton Partners, a private developer. The redevelopment of the oases has been the focal point of alleged political corruption. The four oases are administered by a court-appointed manager following default of Wilton Partners.
The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge over the Cooper River in South Carolina, US, connecting downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. The bridge has a main span of 1,546 feet (471 m), the third longest among cable-stayed bridges in the Western Hemisphere. It was built using the design–build method and was designed by Parsons Brinckerhoff.
The McKinley Bridge is a steel truss bridge across the Mississippi River. It connects northern portions of the city of St. Louis, Missouri with Venice, Illinois. It opened in 1910 and was taken out of service on October 30, 2001. The bridge was reopened for pedestrian and bicyclists on November 17, 2007 with a grand re-opening celebration. Since December 2007, McKinley has been open to vehicular traffic as well. It is accessible from Illinois Route 3 in Illinois and from the intersection of Salisbury and North 9th Street in the city of St. Louis. The bridge carried both railroad and vehicular traffic across the Mississippi River for decades. By 1978, the railroad line over the span was closed, and an additional set of lanes was opened for vehicles in the inner roadway.
The Fort Madison Toll Bridge is a tolled, double-decked swinging truss bridge over the Mississippi River that connects Fort Madison, Iowa, and unincorporated Niota, Illinois. A double-track railway occupies the lower deck of the bridge, while two lanes of road traffic are carried on the upper deck. The bridge is about 1 mile (1.6 km) long with a swing span of 525 feet (160 m), and was the longest and largest double-deck swing-span bridge in the world when constructed in 1927. It replaced an inadequate combination roadway/single-track bridge completed in 1887. The main river crossing consists of four 270-foot (82 m) Baltimore through truss spans and a swing span made of two equal arms, 266 feet (81 m) long. In 1999, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places under the title, Fort Madison Bridge, ID number 99001035. It was also documented as survey number IA-62 by the Historic American Engineering Record, archived at the Library of Congress. Construction and photographic details were recorded at the time in Scientific American magazine.
The New Chain of Rocks Bridge is a pair of bridges across the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri. It was constructed in 1966 to bypass the Chain of Rocks Bridge immediately to the south. It originally carried traffic for Bypass US 66 and currently carries traffic for Interstate 270. The bridge opened to traffic on September 2, 1966.
Transportation in Greater St. Louis, Missouri includes road, rail, ship, and air transportation modes connecting the bi-state St. Louis metropolitan area with surrounding communities throughout the Midwest, national transportation networks, and international locations. The Greater St. Louis region also supports a multi-modal transportation network that includes bus, paratransit, and light rail service in addition to shared-use paths, bike lanes and greenways.
U.S. Route 12 (US 12) in the U.S. state of Illinois is an arterial highway that runs northwest to southeast through the Chicago metropolitan area. It enters Illinois at the Wisconsin border north of Richmond, and exits into Hammond, Indiana, from Chicago near the foot of the onramp to the Indiana Toll Road ; as it exits Illinois, the route is also concurrent with US 20 and US 41. Within Illinois, US 12 runs for a distance of 85.14 miles (137.02 km).
Interstate 90 (I-90) in the US state of Illinois runs roughly northwest-to-southeast through the northern part of the state. From the Wisconsin state line at South Beloit, it heads south to Rockford before heading east-southeast to the Indiana state line at Chicago. I-90 traverses 124 miles (200 km) through a variety of settings, from farmland west of the Fox River Valley through the medium-density suburbs west of O'Hare International Airport, through Downtown Chicago, and through the heart of the industrial southeast side of Chicago before entering Indiana.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. In Iowa, the highway travels west to east through the center of the state. It enters the state at the Missouri River in Council Bluffs and heads east through the southern Iowa drift plain. In the Des Moines metropolitan area, I-80 meets up with I-35 and the two routes bypass Des Moines together. On the northern side of Des Moines, the Interstates split and I-80 continues east. In eastern Iowa, it provides access to the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Northwest of the Quad Cities in Walcott is Iowa 80, the world's largest truck stop. I-80 passes along the northern edge of Davenport and Bettendorf and leaves Iowa via the Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River into Illinois.
U.S. Route 40 Alternate is the U.S. Highway designation for a former segment of U.S. Route 40 (US 40) through Garrett and Allegany counties in Maryland. The highway begins at US 40 near exit 14 on Interstate 68 (I-68) and runs 31.80 miles (51.18 km) eastward to Cumberland, where it ends at exit 44 on I-68. Alt US 40 is maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDSHA).
The Pequabuck Bridge is a historic stone arch bridge, carrying a paved multiuse trail across the Pequabuck River in Farmington, Connecticut. Built in 1833, the bridge formerly carried the adjacent Meadow Road. It is one of the state's only surviving early 19th-century stone arch bridges and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.