Why does the Illinois Tollway bypass Rockford? Here's what happened
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) – Most Rockford residents have heard the story of how the I-90 Tollway, now called the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, was to be routed through downtown Rockford.
But is it true? And what about other projects that could have seen a major highway system come thought the heart of the city? According to experts, the answers are rather interesting.
'Business was booming in Rockford in the 1950s, just like it was around the country,' said Luke Fredrickson, marketing director at Midway Village Museum in Rockford.
By the '50s, Rockford was well on its way to becoming one of the largest manufacturing hubs in the United States. Industrial smokestacks were a symbol if the city's vibrant middle class. Recreation, as well as shopping districts on Seventh, Main and East State streets, were booming.
Highways 20 and 51 were the main ways out of the city. And as more people bought automobiles, personal travel was evolving.
'They wanted to be able to travel to Chicago taking and not take three, four hours taking [Highway] 20 and having to stop in every little town,' Fredrickson said.
Shipping needs were also changing. As factories became more streamlined, goods also needed to come in and out the city faster.
'Business leaders wanted to move their freight on semi-trucks as opposed to having to pay for trains and go along with those schedules,' Fredrickson added. 'It wasn't nearly as nimble.'
As the country modernized, the federal government was at work to accommodate the need for a more efficient highway system. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which spurred construction of Interstate 90, a portion of which would connect Rockford and Chicago.
There were preliminary talks of having the interstate come through downtown, but those talks were halted.
'The political leaders and the large property owners at the time felt that they didn't want that disrupting their neighborhood,' Fredrickson said. 'So, the political forces that be pushed for a different solution in cheap farmland out toward Boone County.'
Before the tollway was completed in 1958, for anyone droving east on East State Street, Rockford largely ended at Alpine Road. Everything beyond that point were fields and farmland.
'All that cheap farmland got bought up and developed, and things moved out that way,' Fredrickson said. 'Rockford College moved out there. Saint Anthony Hospital moved out that way. Rock Valley College was built on the east side, the next big mall, CherryVale, was built out that way.'
As the east side flourished with the addition of the tollway, city leaders looked for ways to keep people downtown. Enter another push to bring a major highway through the center of the city. Enter the Woodruff Expressway.
After the city built the Whitman Street interchange and the cloverleaf at Spring Creek Road and North Second Street in the 1960s, leaders eventually wanted the structure to be part of having Interstate 39 cut through Rockford.
The plans were to come in off of Woodruff Avenue, following the railroad tracks and connecting to Rural Street. The highway would then continue across the river to Huffman Boulevard.
But, the Woodruff Expressway was never built.
'The thing that really put the nail in the coffin on that project is when City Council voted to allow FedEx to go in just north of the kind of curly cue there on 39 where it kind of wraps around so you can get to Alpine,' said City of Rockford Traffic Engineer Jeremy Carter. 'That was supposed to continue north and connect into that railroad right-of-way. And then, in [19] 92, I think, that kind of transportation plan ended.'
Carter says structures like the Whitman interchange and giant overpasses that cut through cities aren't part of modern design practices.
'They destroyed neighborhoods,' he said. 'They made it difficult for pedestrians to get past. They created these big, vehicle rivers through urban areas.'
And while there has been tremendous benefits to building the tollway on the east end of the city, there have been economic consequences for downtown and the west side of Rockford.
'Not as much development was in that area and that's unfortunate for that part of town,' Fredrickson said.
Construction on a Whitman Street interchange redux is currently underway.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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