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 U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

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 The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge (known as the New Mississippi River Bridge until its formal naming in 2013 and informally known as the "Stan Span") is a bridge across the Mississippi River in the United States between St. Clair County, ...

in St. Louis.

Route description

Crossing into Missouri on the Lewis and Clark Viaduct, I-70 immediately encounters the Alphabet Loop, 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 number ...

2 and a letter suffix that uses the entire alphabet (except I, O, and Z). I-70 runs concurrently with

I-35 Interstate 35 (I-35) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route. It stretches from Laredo, Texas, near the Mexican border ...

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 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 The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...

. 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 The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expans ...

third baseman and

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

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- ...

. The Truman Sports Complex, 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 in ...

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 stat ...

, passing a busy cloverleaf interchange at I-470. 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/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 A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which all turns are handled by slip roads. To go left (in right-hand traffic; reverse directions in left-driving regions), vehicles first continue as one road passes over or under the ...

and finally crossing the Missouri River at Rocheport just west of where it reaches the midsized college town of

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

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 St. Louis. Stpeterstrafficjam

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, 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), it passes on the southern edge of St. Louis Lambert International Airport and through several bedroom communities—including Edmundson, Berkeley, Ferguson, and Jennings—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 The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT, ) is a state government organization in charge of maintaining public roadways of the U.S. state of Missouri under the guidance of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission. MoDOT designs ...

(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 ...

s". Two lanes in the middle of the freeway are separated from the eastbound and westbound lanes by Jersey barriers. 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 ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

. Just before it enters Downtown, I-70 turns to the east to cross the

, which redirects the highway's traffic away from the congested Poplar Street Bridge to the south. This stretch of former I-70 is now an extension of I-44.

History

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

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

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 properti ...

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 baseball legend

Stan Musial Stanley Frank Musial (; born Stanislaw Franciszek Musial; November 21, 1920 – January 19, 2013), nicknamed "Stan the Man", was an American baseball outfielder and first baseman. Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most consis ...

. , 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 The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. T ...

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 Jersey barrier. 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 A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford Eng ...

. The Missouri Hyperloop 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

Related routes

Alternate route

Business routes

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Auxiliary routes

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References

External links