Long-Dormant Freeway Projects That Were Completed

[coatimundi]

Looking for highway projects that sat on maps and in plans for decades with no work done, only to finally and somewhat randomly be completed many years later.
It seems like it's more the rule than the exception that, if a new highway plan sits for too long and languishes due either to local opposition or funding constraints, it eventually just dies.

The example I'm thinking of is US 90 between I-610 and Beltway 8 in Houston. That sat for something like 50 years, with ghost ramps at the I-610 interchange and a cleared ROW at Beltway 8. But it was finally built.

I think I-105 in the LA area would also qualify. That was planned in the 60's but wasn't completed (and it really isn't totally complete) until the early 90's, post-"Speed".

What else?

[PHLBOS]

I-476 Blue Route in PA.

[Jardine]

US 20 across Iowa being converted from 2 lane to 4 lane.  They were working on it in the 80s (or sooner?) and it's still not done.

[Duke87]

The Intercounty Connector in Maryland was originally envisioned decades before it opened in 2011.

[formulanone]

I-95 between Vero Beach and PGA Boulevard.

[wanderer2575]

The middle "missing link" section of I-696 between M-10 and I-75 in metro Detroit.

[Jim]

There were overpasses to nowhere at Thruway Exit 26/I-890/NY 5S for decades before the bridge across the Mohawk to create the NY 890 extension to Glenville/NY 5 was finally completed in the 90's.

[peterj920]

US 53 Eau Claire Bypass.  Was planned in the 1960s and completed in the mid 2000s

[jp the roadgeek]

A few in CT that actually DID get built after many years:

Two parts of the old I-291 beltway in the Farmington and South Windsor areas.  The I-84 stack sat there unused for over 20 years before a couple of its ramps were used and the portion from CT 175 to the stack was built in 1992 as part of CT 9 (portion of CT 9 from there to CT 72 was actually a separate connector which was planned at the same time but opened first in 1985).  In 1994, after 36 years, Windsor-Manchester portion was completed when CT 291 (built in 1958) was extended beyond US 5, a direct interchange with I-91 and CT 218 was built, and the whole thing was upgraded to an interstate.

The CT 9 piece from the Berlin Turnpike to I-91 took 20 years to finally get built after the CT 9 expressway was built to I-91 in 1969.

The Brookfield bypass portion of US 7 opened in 2009, 33 years after the rest of the expressway north of I-84 was built.

I-691 west of Exit 4 took almost 17 years to complete after the CT 66 (formerly US 6A) expressway was built.  The latter opened in pieces from 1966-1971, while the portion from Exit 4 to exit 3 opened in 1985 and the rest to I-84 opened in 1988.

[Sykotyk]

The 7-11 connector by Youngstown, Ohio. The ghost ramps were there at I-80 and OH11 to complete it. MLK Blvd had the freeway stub from I-680 to US422. Finally finished years later. Aptly numbered, State Route 711.

[cpzilliacus]

Strangely, there's one in the District of Columbia. 

An interchange was completed at the  junction of I-295, I-695 and D.C. 295 at the south end of the  11th Street Bridge. This project has (after decades of controversy) allowed all movements between all three of these highways, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, S.E.

[lordsutch]

The legendary East End Connector in Durham NC (in a few years, at least...).

In Scotland, the M8 gap (due to be complete next year) probably qualifies.

[dfwmapper]

The South Mountain Freeway segment of Loop 202 in Phoenix was originally approved as part of the 1985 election that passed a 1/2 cent sales tax to fund transportation, and just broke ground earlier this year.

[Ned Weasel]

Soon we can add the South Lawrence Trafficway (freeway portion of Kansas State Highway 10 to replace a surface-street segment through Lawrence) to this list.

[Jardine]

US30 bypass around Missouri Valley IA has been talked about since the 60s.  I think there was a tentative plan at one time to run from the I29 interchange south of Missouri Valley, then NE up the Boyer Valley and connecting back up with US30 just east of Logan IA.

Integrating the bypass with some flood control levees may have both enhanced the desirability of the project and delayed it substantially.

[NE2]

US30 bypass around Missouri Valley IA has been talked about since the 60s.  I think there was a tentative plan at one time to run from the I29 interchange south of Missouri Valley, then NE up the Boyer Valley and connecting back up with US30 just east of Logan IA.

When was this completed?

[bulldog1979]

The South Beltline Freeway near Grand Rapids, proposed in the 1960s, planned in the 1970s, and then finally built 30 years later as M-6

[DandyDan]

It's not a freeway, but I believe US 34 between I-29 and US 75 in Iowa and Nebraska, which was finished a couple years ago, was planned in the 90's, if not earlier.  I believe it was supposed to be an extended I-480 originally, but that never happened.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Dutch A4 between Delft and Schiedam.

For an extreme example, there is a road linking two German towns through Swiss territory. The first treaty to build it dates back to the 19th century, but the road itself wasn't completed until a couple years ago.

[TR69]

Perhaps the missing link between Indiana's I-265 and Kentucky's I-265 around Louisville, though I've seen it argued that filling in that gap was not part of the original plan.

[mgk920]

Also in Wisconsin, not a freeway, but the long-planned west bypass of Waukesha, soon to begin construction.

Mike

[inkyatari]

I would add I-355 in the Chicago burbs. The ghost ramps at the end of the IL-53 spur off of I-290 were there ever since I'd say the 60's, then in the late 80's the first part of I-355 was completed. The second part was held up for an additional 15 years because (I think I have the info correctly) of an endangered butterfly.

[Avalanchez71]

How about SR 836 in Miami-Dade County.  The western end ended in ghost ramps at the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike forever.  SR 836 was extended what 25 years later?

[froggie]

Strangely, there's one in the District of Columbia. 

An interchange was completed at the  junction of I-295, I-695 and D.C. 295 at the south end of the  11th Street Bridge. This project has (after decades of controversy) allowed all movements between all three of these highways, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, S.E.

I'd call that a 15-ish year dormancy, though.  The original plans for the DC Interstate system never envisioned a direct connection between the SE Freeway and DC 295.  Such a connection wasn't proposed or planned until the ca. 1996 Barney Circle Freeway plan.

[RoadWarrior56]

The SR 400 extension inside I-285 in Atlanta was planned for decades before it was finally constructed in the early 90's.  It was the reminant of the proposed N-S freeway that would had connected to I-675 south of town.  The 400 extension had lots of opposition before it was finally constructed, especially within Atlanta.