The Most Important Road Project in Your State

[J N Winkler]

The Minneapolis / St. Paul metro area looks really cloverleafy from above -- I counted 16 freeway-to-freeway cloverleaf interchanges. This is comparing apples to oranges, but MSP has more of these than San Diego, LA, and the Bay Area combined, and just might be #1 in the US for this.

The prevalence of cloverleafs for system interchanges in MSP gave rise to one of the great myths of MTR times--"There are no stacks in the cold northern states," right up there with "US 281 is the dividing line between RM and FM in Texas."  The reality is that when Texas is left out of consideration (with almost 30 stacks, it is an outlier globally, not just nationally), stacks are not noticeably more prevalent in southern states than in northern ones.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

The Minneapolis / St. Paul metro area looks really cloverleafy from above -- I counted 16 freeway-to-freeway cloverleaf interchanges. This is comparing apples to oranges, but MSP has more of these than San Diego, LA, and the Bay Area combined, and just might be #1 in the US for this.

The prevalence of cloverleafs for system interchanges in MSP gave rise to one of the great myths of MTR times--"There are no stacks in the cold northern states," right up there with "US 281 is the dividing line between RM and FM in Texas."  The reality is that when Texas is left out of consideration (with almost 30 stacks, it is an outlier globally, not just nationally), stacks are not noticeably more prevalent in southern states than in northern ones.

I remember when I was driving through Texas last year and passed the southern I-35/410 junction in San Antonio which is a straight cloverleaf and being shocked that it hadn't been turned into a 4-level stack.

[paulthemapguy]

Since people have been discussing FUTURE projects and not CURRENT projects, I'd just like to be clear about Illinois projects that are happening RIGHT NOW--

The I-90 expansion is wrapping up, that has been a massive project.  The Circle Interchange in downtown Chicago is being reconstructed and reconfigured.  And the O'Hare Western Access Project--IL390 construction is well underway.

That's probably the top 3 for IL unless I'm missing something downstate.

[froggie]

s there any foreseeable future possibility for a complete rebuild of the I-94/494/694 (east) interchange?  That cloverleaf is NASTY!

Nope.  The 35W/494, 35W/694, and 94/494 (west) interchanges are far higher priorities.