Effingham Outer Belt Road (IL)

[Alex]

Saw this road on the aerials just west of I-57/70 and did a search for it and found this article. It opened fully on December 21, 2011.

Outer Belt West project completed

Outer Belt West North connects Avenue of Mid America to Illinois 32/33 on North Keller Drive, wrapping around the northwest side of the Firefly Grill and coming out near Ford Avenue. It's the final portion of the Outer Belt road, which gives motorists a straight shot from U.S. 40 to the north side of the city and allows them to avoid notoriously traffic-congested Keller Drive.

Also known as Robert F. Utz Beltway, construction began on the road in 2004 when the three-term mayor was in office. Work included improvements to West Evergreen and the extension of Avenue of Mid America. At that time, Outer Belt was created and stretched only as far as a little south of Interstate Truck Repair.

In 2007, construction began on the second leg, which connected the piece of roadway near the truck repair facility and ran south to West Fayette Avenue. The third leg ran from there to U.S. 40, leaving the final portion left to be completed, Outer Belt West North.

Ground was broken on the final half-mile portion more than a year ago.

Total cost of the Outer Belt project came to nearly $15.7 million, with about $10.5 million coming from grant funding.

[kphoger]

Back when I was driving in that area, I was fortunate enough to either be going from I-57 North to IL-33/32 West, or actually heading into Effingham itself.  Rarely did I have to drive through town.  But I remember the construction zones, just didn't know what it was all about.

[Revive 755]

Outer belt seems like an overly fancy name; it's closer to a service drive for I-57/70.  It is visible on the satellite view in Google Maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=39.1252,-88.566198&spn=0.028132,0.066047&t=h&z=15

[JREwing78]

Exactly. It also appears to have not been built with any ROW in place to allow for widening. That'll probably be shown in 20-30 years to have been a mistake.

[Brandon]

Exactly. It also appears to have not been built with any ROW in place to allow for widening. That'll probably be shown in 20-30 years to have been a mistake.

In Effingham?  I doubt they'll see all that much traffic on it.  It's not like we're talking about Aurora or Minooka here.

[adt1982]

I go to and through Effingham on a fairly regularly basis and I agree with this.  Effingham isn't now nor will it be an expanding area like you see closer to Chicago to the Metro East.