FUTURE INTERSTATE CORRIDORS
Building America's Next Generation Interstate Network
The Future Interstate Corridors (FIC) designations represent some of the most significant transportation infrastructure initiatives in the United States. These corridors were authorized by Congress as High Priority Corridors and are intended to become future additions to the Interstate Highway System as funding, planning, and construction advance.
Across the nation, states, metropolitan planning organizations, economic development organizations, ports, freight stakeholders, and local governments are working together to transform critical transportation corridors into modern Interstate-standard facilities capable of supporting economic growth, national security, freight mobility, and population expansion throughout the 21st Century.
The TransAmerica Corridor (Future Interstate 66 and Future Interstate 50) is proud to be part of this growing national movement through its participation in the Congressionally Authorized Future Interstate Coalition (CAFI).
The corridors shown on the map below are not conceptual highway proposals or privately developed transportation visions—some of them have been amended (such as Future Interstate 27 and others on the list are undergoing amendments). They are federally recognized transportation corridors that have been designated by Congress through various transportation authorization acts over the past several decades.
Many of these corridors carry official High Priority Corridor designations established in federal law. Others have been designated as Future Interstate Corridors eligible for eventual inclusion in the Interstate Highway System once Interstate standards, funding requirements, and federal approvals are achieved.
Collectively, these corridors represent America’s unfinished Interstate network.
The Congressionally Authorized Future Interstate Coalition (CAFI) brings together organizations and stakeholders representing these federally designated corridors to advance planning, funding, construction, and Interstate designation efforts nationwide.
While the timelines for completion vary by corridor, the routes shown on the CAFI map already possess federal recognition through Congressional action. The mission is not to create new corridors from scratch, but to help complete, upgrade, and fully realize transportation corridors that Congress has already identified as nationally significant.
The East-West TransAmerica Corridor (High Priority Corridor 3), including Future Interstate 66 and the proposed Future Interstate 50 system, is one of these Congressionally authorized corridors and remains part of the broader national vision for strengthening America’s transportation infrastructure.
High Priority Corridors HistoryThe Congressionally Authorized Future Interstate Coalition CAFI
DESIGNATED FUTURE INTERSTATE CORRIDORS INCLUDED IN CAFI
The CAFI Coalition currently includes the Congressionally authorized High Priority Corridors that are designated Future Interstate Highways or Future Interstate Highway Systems. There are 35 in total, but those featured on CAFI and in the list (13 with 1 auxiliary) below are the designated future interstate corridors that are also multi-state:
Future Interstate 49
North-South Corridor from Kansas City, Missouri, to Shreveport, Louisiana.
Future I-42
Highway 412 East-West Corridor from Tulsa, Oklahoma, through Arkansas along United States Route 62/63/65 to Nashville, Tennessee.
Future Interstate 66
East-West Transamerica Corridor commencing on the Atlantic Coast and ending on the Pacific Coast.
Future Interstates 73/74
A north-south corridor commencing in Detroit, Michigan, moving south across Ohio and West Virginia, then into Virginia with a terminus at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Future Interstate 27
A north south corridor commencing in Texas, moving north across Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, with a terminus in Montana.
Future Interstate 11
A north-south corridor stretching from I-80 in northern Nevada down to Las Vegas, Nevada, into Arizona with a terminus at the border with Mexico.
Future Interstate 57
A north-south corridor connecting Chicago, Illinois to Little Rock, Arkansas.
Future Interstate 22
An east-west corridor route connecting Memphis, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama.
Future Interstate 69
A major north-south corridor connecting Detroit, Michigan down through the Midwest to Texas and the border with Mexico.
Future Interstate 14
An east-west corridor from Odessa, Texas connecting the southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama to Augusta, Georgia.
Future Interstate 86
An east-west corridor stretching from Erie, Pennsylvania to Vestal, New York.
Future Interstate 99
A north-south corridor starting in Bedford, Pennsylvania connecting its way to Steuben County, New York.
Future Interstate 87
A north-south corridor beginning at Norfolk, Virginia, continuing across North Carolina until it reaches Raleigh and Wendell.
Future Interstate 685 (Auxiliary)
A north-south corridor planned to follow U.S. 421, stretching roughly 125 miles from Greensboro, North Carolina and down to the I-95 corridor near Dunn, North Carolina.
Why Future Interstate Corridors Matter
Future Interstate Corridors matter because they close a gap that the original Interstate Highway System never fully addressed. The 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act and its build-out over the following decades prioritized connections between the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, leaving vast swaths of rural America, particularly in the South, Southwest, and parts of the Midwest, without direct access to limited-access, Interstate-standard roadways. Congress recognized this gap in 1991 with ISTEA, which established the High Priority Corridors program specifically to identify and advance future Interstate routes through underserved regions.
More than three decades later, many of these congressionally authorized corridors, including Future I-66/I-50, remain incomplete, underfunded, or in need of clarified statutory language to guide construction to full Interstate standard.
The case for completing these corridors rests on several concrete benefits beyond what you’ve already outlined:
Freight efficiency and supply chain resilience. A large share of US freight still moves over two-lane, undivided highways with at-grade intersections, rail crossings, and traffic signals that slow trucks and create chokepoints. Upgrading these segments to Interstate standard reduces transit times, lowers shipping costs, and gives supply chains alternative routes when primary corridors face disruption from weather, accidents, or congestion. This matters more, not less, as re-shoring and near-shoring trends push manufacturers to rebuild domestic and North American supply chains.
Safety. Undivided rural highways carrying Interstate-level truck volumes have substantially higher fatal crash rates than divided, controlled-access Interstates. Head-on collisions, crashes at un-signaled intersections, and conflicts between high-speed through traffic and local access are largely engineered out of true Interstate design. Completing these corridors is, in part, a traffic-safety investment for the rural communities that live along them.
Equity of access. Future Interstate Corridors are often framed as a rural equity issue: communities along these routes pay the same federal fuel taxes as everyone else but have historically not received a proportional share of Interstate-grade infrastructure. Completing these corridors extends the economic and safety benefits of the Interstate System to populations that have waited the longest for them.
Military and emergency mobility. The Interstate System was authorized in part as the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, and that defense-mobility rationale persists today. Future Interstate Corridors fill gaps in the strategic highway network used for military deployment, evacuation routes, and disaster response, particularly important for corridors that cross sparsely populated regions where alternate routes are limited.
Multimodal and port connectivity. Corridors that connect inland population centers to ports, whether on the Gulf, the Pacific, or via inland waterway systems, convert the corridor from a regional road into a piece of national trade infrastructure.
Economic development and site selection. Site selectors and corporate relocation consultants routinely screen for Interstate access as a baseline criterion for industrial and distribution facility investment. Communities without it are excluded from consideration before negotiations even begin, regardless of land cost, workforce, or other advantages. Closing these Interstate gaps is frequently the single highest-leverage infrastructure investment a region can make to become competitive for new plants, distribution centers, and logistics operations.
Auxiliary Future Interstate Corridors
Auxiliary Future Interstate Corridors are federally designated transportation routes that connect, support, and strengthen the larger network of Congressionally authorized Future Interstate Corridors.
Future Auxiliary Interstate Corridors are federally authorized three-digit Interstate routes that extend the benefits of the Interstate System into ports, manufacturing centers, logistics hubs, military installations, and growing regional markets. While primary Future Interstate Corridors provide long-distance national connectivity, auxiliary corridors create the local and regional connections that allow communities to access the broader Interstate network. Together they form a complete transportation system that supports freight mobility, economic development, national security, and regional growth.
I-195 (Washington, DC) — the current Interstate 695 will be eliminated and replaced with an extension of Interstate 395, with the original I-395 through the 3rd Street Tunnel renumbered as Interstate 195
I-214 (Texas) — proposed to be a beltway around Bryan-College Station
I-222 (Alabama) — a future auxiliary Interstate Highway that will connect I-22 and the proposed I-422 near Birmingham, with no exits other than its termini, since a direct interchange between I-22 and I-422 can’t be built due to environmental issues
I-274 (North Carolina) — the future designation for the western half of a beltway, currently NC 452, connecting US 158 near Clemmons to Future I-74/Future I-285/US 52 in Bethania; AASHTO approved the request to establish Future I-274 on May 20, 2019
I-343 (Oklahoma) — a proposed designation for the existing Muskogee Turnpike, currently designated Oklahoma State Highway 351
I-365 (Kentucky) — a proposed re-designation of the Cumberland Parkway once upgraded to Interstate standards, included in a 2021 infrastructure bill, still requiring AASHTO/FHWA approval and interchange upgrades (this shares a common corridor with Interstate 66)
I-369 (Kentucky) — planned to follow the entire Audubon Parkway, with the western terminus to I-69 called I-69 Spur
I-380 (Ohio) — proposed to run from the southern terminus of Ohio SR 8 at Akron to its intersection with I-271; not yet approved
I-422 (Alabama) — a proposed beltway in Birmingham, also called Corridor X-1, that won’t directly connect to I-22 (hence I-222); no construction timeline established
I-490 (Illinois) — the O’Hare West Bypass/Western O’Hare Beltway, a six-mile electronic toll highway under construction connecting I-294 to I-90 via an extension of IL 390, proposed for completion by 2027
I-569 (Kentucky) — the Western Kentucky Parkway, originally proposed as I-369 before being changed to I-569 in December 2019 once the Audubon Parkway took the I-369 designation
I-644 (Oklahoma) — a proposed designation for the existing Creek Turnpike
I-685 (North Carolina) — a proposed Interstate along current US 421, to be upgraded from I-40 in Greensboro to I-95 in Dunn
I-795 (Florida) — Florida State Road 9B is planned to be re-designated I-795 once approved by FHWA and AASHTO
I-905 (California) — proposed to replace California State Route 905, which connects San Diego to the Mexican border
While primary corridors such as Future I-66/I-50, I-27, I-57, and I-73 provide major long-distance freight and mobility connections, auxiliary corridors serve as critical feeders, spurs, connectors, and regional links that expand the reach of the national system. These routes improve access to ports, manufacturing centers, agricultural regions, military installations, and growing population centers while creating additional redundancy and resiliency within the nation’s transportation network. Together, the primary and auxiliary corridors form an integrated system designed to support economic development, national competitiveness, freight mobility, and future Interstate expansion across the United States.
The East-West TransAmerica Corridor's Role
The TransAmerica Corridor is designated by Congress as High Priority Corridor 3 and is one of the nation’s longest planned east-west transportation corridors. The corridor includes the Future Interstate 66 system and the proposed Future Interstate 50. The corridor was originally authorized to connect Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas to California and remains an important component of national transportation planning.
Today, TransAmerica Corridor, Inc. works with partners across multiple states to support corridor preservation, future Interstate development, freight mobility initiatives, economic development opportunities, and long-term transportation planning.
As a member of CAFI, the organization collaborates with other Future Interstate corridor leaders to advocate for federal policies and funding mechanisms that can help complete America’s next generation Interstate network.
Partners