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Area Spotlights

NEW INTERSTATE CORRIDORS

by Adam Bruns

This 1967 photo takes in the view along a 23-mile section of the Adirondack Northway (I-87) between Lake George and Pottersville, New York, adjudged America’s Most Scenic New Highway of 1966 by Parade Magazine.
Photo courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration

All Roads Start Somewhere

Every Interstate highway was once a new Interstate highway.

As the photograph on this page attests, new Interstate corridors have to start somewhere. Today’s supercommuters on busy routes like I-85 may laugh ruefully at the pristine surroundings of yesteryear. But those with vision see I-22 from Memphis to Birmingham or other new routes as emerging corridors ripe with development potential for industry and tourism.

Out of 102 high priority corridors officially designated by Congress, I-22 is one of 35 designated as a future Interstate highway. Among others:

  • I-69 “from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, through Port Huron, Michigan, southwesterly … through Indianapolis, Indiana, through Evansville, Indiana, Memphis, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Shreveport / Bossier Louisiana, to Houston, Texas, and to the Lower Rio Grande Valley at the border between the United States and Mexico”
  • The Raleigh-Norfolk Corridor
  • The North-South Corridor (I-49) from Kansas City, Missouri, to Shreveport, Louisiana
  • The California Farm-to-Market Corridor, California State Route 99 from south of Bakersfield to Sacramento
  • The East-West Transamerica Corridor from Hampton Roads, Virginia, across sections of the I-73/74 corridor in West Virginia and the I-66 corridor in Kentucky
  • The Middle Georgia Corridor (I-14) beginning at the Alabama-Georgia border and following the Fall Line Freeway from Columbus, Georgia, to Augusta.

A full listing with complete route breakdowns and maps can be found at the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration website at www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/national_highway_system/high_priority_corridors.

A full exploration of these corridors’ potential can be found in future issues of Site Selection.