Interstate 70 (I-70) in the US state of

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

is generally parallel to the Missouri River. This section of the transcontinental Interstate begins at the

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

state line on the Lewis and Clark Viaduct, running concurrently with U.S. Route 24 (US 24), US 40, and US 169, and the east end is on the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Route description

Crossing into Missouri on the Lewis and Clark Viaduct, I-70 immediately encounters the

Alphabet Loop The Downtown Loop, also called the Alphabet Loop, is a complex layout of highways in downtown Kansas City, Missouri involving 23 exits, four Interstate Highways, four U.S. Highways and numerous city streets. Each exit in the highway loop is numb ...

, a small but complex loop of freeways with all of its exits having the

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

2 and a letter suffix that uses the entire alphabet (except I, O, and Z). I-70 runs concurrently with I-35 once it enters into the Loop. Both Interstates maintain the concurrency until they approach the northeastern corner of the Loop. Back at the northwest corner, US 169 splits off to the north, leaving four routes concurrent with each other. There is a large interchange with Route 9 in the Loop's northeastern corner. At that corner,

I-29 Interstate 29 (I-29) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern United States. I-29 runs from Kansas City, Missouri, at a junction with I-35 and I-70, to the Canada–US border near Pembina, North Dakota, where it connects with Manitoba ...

ends, and US 71 joins. Once it leaves I-35, I-70 turns south, with interchanges to more roads. At the southeastern corner, I-70, US 40, US 24, and US 71 all exit the Loop. I-70, US 40, and US 24 split off to the east, and US 71 continues south. I-670 ends at the alignment. Not long after they usurp that alignment, I-70/US 40/US 24 turn southeast. US 40 departs from I-70 at exit 7A. I-70 and US 24 then interchanges with I-435, the

beltway A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop, bypass or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city, or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist i ...

around the Kansas City metropolitan area. US 24 departs from I-70 exit 8B and heads north following I-435. While passing through Kansas City, I-70 is known as the George Brett Super Highway, named after former Kansas City Royals third baseman and Baseball Hall of Fame member

George Brett George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played all of his 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a third baseman for the Kansas City Royals. Brett's 3,154 career hits are second-mo ...

. The

Truman Sports Complex The Harry S. Truman Sports Complex is a sports and entertainment facility located in Kansas City, Missouri. It is home to two major sports venues: Arrowhead Stadium—home of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, and Kauffman Stadiu ...

, which houses the Royals's and Chiefs's stadiums, is located adjacent to the I-70/

I-435 Interstate 435 (I-435) is an Interstate Highway beltway that encircles much of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the states of Kansas and Missouri in the United States. Route description I-435, a loop route of I-35, is long and ...

interchange. I-70 Western Missouri

East of I-435, I-70 continues east through

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

, passing a busy cloverleaf interchange at

I-470 Interstate 470 may refer to: *Interstate 470 (Kansas), a loop around Topeka *Interstate 470 (Missouri), a connection at Kansas City * Interstate 470 (Ohio–West Virginia), a loop around Wheeling, West Virginia *Three highways which are part of what ...

. The highway then continues with six lanes to the rapidly growing suburb of Blue Springs, where the roadway narrows to four lanes (two each direction) at Route 7. I-70 remains at this width until just west of the intersection with

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchang ...

/US 40/ US 61 in Wentzville, over away. East of Blue Springs, I-70 takes on a rural highway as it leaves Jackson County. The highway remains this way for the next , going through gently rolling terrain while it meets US 65 at a cloverleaf interchange and finally crossing the Missouri River at Rocheport just west of where it reaches the midsized college town of Columbia in the center of the state. Through Columbia, the highway is lined with restaurants and hotels and can get congested during

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

sporting events. The highway leaves Columbia after an exit with St. Charles Road on the east end of town. East of Columbia, I-70 has an interchange with US 54 at Kingdom City, Route 19 at New Florence, and Route 47 at Warrenton. Then, it continues through more gently rolling terrain until it reaches Wentzville, where it meets I-64/US 61. Here, US 40 departs from I-70. It then expands to three lanes each direction to

East of Wentzville, I-70 passes through the

bedroom community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

of Lake St. Louis, then the growing towns of O'Fallon and St. Peters, and finally the historic city of St. Charles. It crosses over the Missouri River one last time on the

Blanchette Memorial Bridge The Blanchette Memorial Bridge is a pair of twin cantilever bridges carrying Interstate 70 across the Missouri River between St. Louis County and St. Charles County, Missouri, opened in 1959. At the bridge's crossing, the Missouri River reache ...

, which is actually made up of two bridges: the westbound span built in the late 1950s and refurbished in 2013 and the eastbound one completed in the late 1970s. Traffic volume increases as I-70 enters St. Louis County, requiring more lanes. There are as many as 13 lanes at one point. The section of I-70 from Fifth Street in St. Charles to I-270 is among the busiest section of highway in the state, with

annual average daily traffic Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a ...

(AADT) counts approaching 165,000 in 2005. I-270 draws much of the traffic, so I-70 continues east through Bridgeton with only six lanes. After interchanges with Route 180 (St. Charles Rock Road) and US 67 (

Lindbergh Boulevard Lindbergh Boulevard, named after the aviator, Charles Lindbergh, is a section of U.S. Route 61 in Missouri, U.S. Routes 61 and U.S. Route 67 in Missouri, 67 that extends through Missouri. Lindbergh Boulevard is home to Missouri's only traffic ...

), it passes on the southern edge of

St. Louis Lambert International Airport St. Louis Lambert International Airport is the primary commercial airport serving metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Commonly referred to as Lambert Field or simply Lambert, it is the largest and busiest airport in the state o ...

and through several

bedroom communities A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

—including Edmundson, Berkeley, Ferguson, and

Jennings Jennings is a surname of early medieval English origin (also the Anglicised version of the Irish surnames Mac Sheóinín or MacJonin). Notable people with the surname include: *Jennings (Swedish noble family) A–G *Adam Jennings (born 1982), A ...

—and crossing I-170 in the process. As it finally enters the city of St. Louis, motorists encounter what are signed as the "Express Lanes", known by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) as the "

reversible lane A reversible lane (British English: tidal flow) is a lane in which traffic may travel in either direction, depending on certain conditions. Typically, it is meant to improve traffic flow during rush hours, by having overhead traffic lights and li ...

s". Two lanes in the middle of the freeway are separated from the eastbound and westbound lanes by

Jersey barrier A Jersey barrier, Jersey wall, or Jersey bump is a modular concrete or plastic barrier employed to separate lanes of traffic. It is designed to minimize vehicle damage in cases of incidental contact while still preventing vehicle crossovers resu ...

s. Due to traffic pattern changes caused by the I-64 reconstruction, the lanes travel eastbound all day. MoDOT regularly monitors traffic patterns of this stretch of I-70 and will adjust the express lane traffic patterns accordingly. These lanes have no entrance or exit ramps, except at the ends. They extend approximately from near Union Boulevard to just north of Downtown. Just before it enters Downtown, I-70 turns to the east to cross the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge, which redirects the highway's traffic away from the congested

Poplar Street Bridge The Congressman William L. Clay Sr. Bridge, formerly known as the Bernard F. Dickmann Bridge and popularly as the Poplar Street Bridge or PSB, completed in 1967, is a deck girder bridge across the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, ...

to the south. This stretch of former I-70 is now an extension of

I-44 Interstate 44 (I-44) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. Although it is nominally an east–west road as it is even-numbered, it follows a more southwest–northeast alignment. Its western terminus is in Wichita Fal ...

History

I-70 had been criticized for cutting off Downtown from the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

waterfront particularly at the Gateway Arch. St. Louis constructed a $90-million (equivalent to $ in ) project to cover the highway (now I-44) by the Arch. This was not the first controversy involving I-70 and the Arch. In 1959, builders of the Poplar Street Bridge asked for the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

to give of the park for the bridge. The request generated enormous controversy and ultimately was turned over to use for the bridge. The New Mississippi River Bridge was finished and opened to traffic on Sunday, February 9, 2014. It reroutes and redirects I-70 traffic off the congested Poplar Street Bridge. The bridge was named in honor of

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

baseball legend Stan Musial. , US 24 follows I-70 east to

north. US 24 that used to follow Independence Avenue will become a business route of US 24.

Future

I-70 across central Missouri is one of the oldest stretches of Interstate Highway in the system, as some sections date back as far as the late 1950s. As a result, the exits often have short, substandard acceleration and deceleration ramps and the median is relatively narrow. Certain spots of both directions of traffic are separated by no more than a

. Also, a number of overpasses have low clearance, especially railway overpasses. Long-term plans have been identified to expand the highway to between six and eight lanes across the middle of the state. Tolling the Interstate has become a possible alternative, although the public does not support this idea. A March 2010 study of I-70 from the Kansas state line to the I-470 interchange identified several possible improvements, including expanding the freeway from four to eight lanes, adding HOV or HOT lanes, reconstructing the Truman Road interchange, and improving the curves at Jackson Avenue and Truman Road. Some novel ideas included a new alignment of I-70 as a tunnel from the southeast corner of the downtown loop to 22nd/23rd streets, covering the southern portion of the downtown loop (I-670), or making the downtown loop into a unidirectional freeway around downtown, essentially becoming a large roundabout. The

Missouri Hyperloop The Missouri Hyperloop is a proposed high-speed transportation route in the U.S. state of Missouri. The hyperloop would connect the cities of St. Louis, Columbia, Missouri, Columbia, and Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, complementing the busy ...

is a proposed high-speed transportation route that would complement and relieve I-70. MoDOT plans to replace the Rocheport Bridge, which crosses the Missouri River near Rocheport, with two bridges. Currently one bridge carries four lanes of I-70. Construction of one span is scheduled to begin in late 2021.

Exit list

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References

External links