U.S. Route 55

U.S. Route 55 was a proposed and partially signed highway designation in the United States highway system during the 1920s–1950s era. The designation appeared in planning documents and ephemeral maps associated with the American Association of State Highway Officials, the Federal Highway Administration, and several state highway departments including those of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Though never consistently maintained as a continuous corridor like U.S. Route 1, U.S. Route 66, or U.S. Route 20, the label surfaced in regional proposals linked to major corridors connecting Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Des Moines.

Route description

Planned alignments for the designation traversed the Midwestern landscape, routing through urban centers such as Chicago, Springfield, Illinois, St. Louis, Columbia, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri. The projected itinerary used existing state routes and portions of the United States Numbered Highway System grid to bridge the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and the Missouri River drainage basins. Along the corridor the route would have intersected nationally significant corridors like U.S. Route 20, U.S. Route 30, U.S. Route 40, U.S. Route 50, and U.S. Route 66, and linked to Interstate-era corridors such as Interstate 55, Interstate 64, and Interstate 70. Terrain encountered included the Chicago Plain, the Interior Plains, and riparian zones adjacent to the Mississippi River and Missouri River. Key crossings would have utilized existing bridges at St. Louis Gateway Arch National Park approaches and river crossings near Quad Cities and Keokuk, Iowa.

History

References to the number in historical records date to discussions at the American Association of State Highway Officials meetings in the late 1920s and postwar planning in the 1940s and 1950s, contemporaneous with projects overseen by the Bureau of Public Roads and later the Federal Highway Administration. The designation competed in planning with established routings such as U.S. Route 66 and proposals that became parts of Interstate 55 and Interstate 70. Political negotiations involved state transportation agencies from Illinois Department of Transportation, Iowa Department of Transportation, and the Missouri Department of Transportation and were influenced by congressional delegations from states including Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. Major urban planning authorities in Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, and regional chambers of commerce advocated different alignments tied to industrial centers like Gary, Indiana, Peoria, Illinois, and Springfield, Missouri. With the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the rise of the Interstate Highway System, the number was largely abandoned or subsumed by corridors that received interstate designations.

Major intersections

Documents and period maps indicate planned junctions with numerous principal routes and facilities: intersections with U.S. Route 20 near Rockford, Illinois, junctions with U.S. Route 50 around Jefferson City, Missouri, crossings of U.S. Route 24 and U.S. Route 36 near Canton, Missouri and Champaign, Illinois, and connections to U.S. Route 66 alignments in Springfield, Illinois. In metropolitan zones the planned route interfaced with major arteries including Interstate 55 near Chicago, Interstate 64 at St. Louis, and Interstate 70 at Kansas City. Freight and passenger rail hubs along the corridor included Chicago Union Station, St. Louis Gateway Station, Kansas City Union Station, and Cedar Rapids Station where multimodal connections were considered. Planned interchanges were frequently coordinated with port and river facilities at St. Louis Riverfront, Quad Cities river ports, and bulk terminals serving Coalbrookdale-era industrial districts.

Related routes

Proposed and implemented routings in the region created a web of related numbered highways: U.S. Route 36, U.S. Route 40, U.S. Route 50, U.S. Route 60, and U.S. Route 66 share historical and geographic relationships with the corridor concepts behind the designation. Interstate corridors such as Interstate 55, Interstate 64, Interstate 70, Interstate 72, and Interstate 74 overlapped or paralleled portions of the concept. State highways managed by Illinois Route 4 (former), Missouri Route 3, and Iowa Highway 27 were also incorporated into some alignment drafts. Local municipal routes and bypass proposals in cities like St. Louis, Springfield, Illinois, Des Moines, and Peoria, Illinois further complicated numbering and signage.

Future plans and proposals

No current federal initiative exists to revive the historical designation; contemporary planning focuses on upgrading capacity along Interstate 55, Interstate 70, and regional high-occupancy lanes coordinated by metropolitan planning organizations such as Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and East-West Gateway Council of Governments. Proposals at state levels occasionally reference historic route concepts for branding and tourism initiatives linking Route 66-era heritage sites, National Register of Historic Places locations, and riverfront revitalization projects in St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri. Transportation policy debates in United States Congress committees and state legislatures could affect corridor classifications, but the trend since the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 has favored interstate numbering and state route consolidation over resurrection of mid-20th-century U.S. Route proposals.

Category:United States Numbered Highways