The Rebirth of a Corridor

“The future of the regions in between I-70 and I-40, including southeast Missouri where this project originated, will be decided by what we do now in order to complete the Interstate 66 TransAmerica Corridor.  The best way to create growth remains direct access to the national economy and markets.  This corridor will allow us to increase those connections in the years ahead.”

— Robert Spurlock, President/Executive Director of TransAmerica Corridor, Inc.

The Rebirth of a Corridor

By Robert Spurlock

Since the late 1980s, the idea of a middle corridor across the United States has been carried forward by a determined group of regional leaders in southeast Missouri. These leaders saw something others did not: the need for a transcontinental interstate spine between I-70 and I-40. This new east-west corridor would link all the communities forgotten by the National Interstate Highway System as it was built out from the 1950s to the 1990s.

This idea is the East-West TransAmerica Corridor, formally designated by a Congressional statutory route description in 1995. The statutory route designation was issued one year after the completion of a national-scale feasibility study led by MoDOT and a multi-state steering committee. Twelve states were represented in the study, as it looked at all multi-modal possibilities. It included conventional interstates, interstates with separated freight lanes, a high-speed freight rail concept, and pipelines with varying modalities, including electric and fiber optic conduits.

The results showed the need for an interstate spine spanning at least one half of the United States. What follows is a look at some of the history behind the project, along with the progress that’s been made since the mid-1990s.

A VISION DECADES IN THE MAKING

The project’s origins can be traced back to Bob Empie, the plant manager of the P&G Cape Girardeau Site in the 1980s. The nation had just made the transition from an economy based on railroads at scale to an economy based on freight trucks utilizing the new interstate highway system. Cape Girardeau was already well placed with its access to rail (north-south, east-west). Interstate 55 provided north-south transportation access, opening in the 1970s.

The biggest lack was east-west transportation access. One of Bob’s challenges during his tenure was to figure out a way to solve the problem. A business colleague, Jerry Lipps, owned a plane and offered Bob the opportunity to fly to Jefferson City to privately meet with Governor Ashcroft. When Bob walked into the room, the Governor was playing the piano.

“Bob, I heard you need a highway,” he stated. The Governor continued playing piano as he explained the process of getting a project like that on the Missouri Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP).

Not long after this meeting, Bob had the opportunity to personally ask President Ronald Reagan how to go about getting a project like a new east-west highway accomplished, preferably one that is coast-to-coast. The President’s rebuttal was swift, “Wow! Let me know how to do that when you find out, will you?”

By 1987, the City of Cape Girardeau started the preparation for a new bridge facility on the Mississippi River. A group of business leaders thought a project like a new bridge would be the perfect way to get a new east-west highway—the idea was: If you build the highway the bridge will follow. A small group called the “6:30 Club,” which included local leaders like Earl Norman, Jim Drury, Gene Rhodes, and others, met every morning and began discussions on pushing for any new highway to be built as an interstate.

The Regional Commerce and Growth Association, led by Walt Wildman, made the interstate idea its central project. By April 1989, over fifty individuals flew into Lambert International Airport at St. Louis, Missouri in order to attend a meeting about a new east-west interstate highway. This gathering was held at the Drury Inn and Suites near the airport.

The St. Louis’ meeting solidified that the recently built I-66 at Washington, DC could be extended west across the country. In doing so, it would link the ports on the east coast with those on the west. The coalition formalized its organization as the Interstate 66 Project, Incorporated, and got to work. In 1990, the organization moved its headquarters to Wichita, Kansas, under the direction of Mayor Bob Knight.

Congressman Bill Emerson helped the organization get the project into the ISTEA Act of 1991, which became the foundation plan set by Congress on what new corridors would be built after the 1992 “formal completion” of the National Interstate Highway System. The Interstate 66 project got placed third on the newly created High Priority Corridor list, set by Congress. The FHWA made MoDOT the leader of the Steering Committee of the coast-to-coast feasibility study. It was completed on September 8th, 1994 to mixed findings. The study explored a multi-modal “super-corridor” concept combining interstate highways, freight rail, utility pipelines, and communications infrastructure. The only viable sections were the interstate concepts—specifically conventional interstate. Even then, the viable route was seen as avoiding the Rocky Mountains.

It was around this time that the Interstate 66 Project, Inc. moved its headquarters back to Cape Girardeau. Upon receiving the Interstate 66 number and statutory route designation in November 1995, the states involved began their studies. The first of these started in 1996 (Kentucky) and 1997 (Virginia). The Virginia study was conducted by Michael Baker, Jr., Inc. and looked to expand US 460 as the primary route. In Kentucky, the spine of the route was KY 68 and KY 80. Over the decades since, more studies were done, including the I-73 study in West Virginia (2008), along with the Coalfields Expressway (2006). Both of them were required by Congress to “share a common corridor” with the East-West TransAmerica Corridor system.

A study was also partially completed in southern Illinois. From 2011-2014, IDOT led a Tier 1 EIS to examine where the route would get built. Due to the way it was funded (mostly by a Delta Regional Authority grant), it required the participation of three Departments of Transportation: IDOT, MoDOT, KYTC.

Kentucky’s Secretary of Transportation sent a memo to IDOT in early 2015 with the reasons for not participating further. These reasons were due to Kentucky not agreeable to funding alternate routes for I-66, and that the statutory route language forbade it anyway. Congress required the route to go into Illinois.

Since the I-24 bridge was already there, Kentucky saw its job as done regarding the final routing. There were additional reasons for KYTC not pursuing I-66 at the time, which included the construction of I-69. They pulled out of the study, and by July 2015, the study was cancelled by the FHWA.

EXPANSION IS HAPPENING, DESPITE THE LACK OF FUNDING

Congress may have given the nation a plan for what corridors need to be constructed after 1992, but it never provided a mechanism to fund them. A few of the corridors on the High Priority Corridors list, such as the Avenues of the Saints (2008), have been completed. Most of I-49 (High Priority Corridor 1) is complete, with sections in Arkansas still under development.
Virginia expanded much of US 460 and US 220, but in 2015 cancelled the last portion, Petersburg to Suffolk.

Kentucky expanded its parkway system and managed to make a portion of the I-66 Corridor into an I-65 Spur (High Priority Corridor 97 and numbered as I-365). In 2024, Congressman Hal Rogers got an initial $45 million to finish the I-66 Northern Bypass at Somerset, with an additional $37 million following by 2026. For the first time since the late 2000s, the I-66 Corridor is listed on the Kentucky Highway Plan (2026-2032). In Missouri, US 60 was expanded to a four-lane corridor, and the 1987 bridge project finally opened in the year 2003—though its four lanes were never connected to a divided four-lane highway.

This could all be fast-tracked with the CAFI project started by the Ports-to-Plains Corridor coalition. The TransAmerica Corridor, Inc. organization recently endorsed the concept. The Congressionally Authorized Future Interstate coalition (CAFI) would finally create a fund to finish out construction on the High Priority Corridors list. In spite of a lack of federal funding, today you can drive from Paducah to Somerset, Kentucky on a divided four-lane rural expressway. It’s no longer a pipe dream.

THE CASE FOR A MIDDLE CORRIDOR

The inescapable fact is the United States lacks a high-capacity east-west interstate corridor between I-70 and I-40. This creates a substantial gap in freight mobility, industrial access, and economic integration—especially the further west you go, such as California where freight trucks must travel nearly six hundred miles to get from I-80 to I-40. Much of southern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southern Kansas remain dependent on aging U.S. highways that were never designed to carry modern traffic volumes.

The National Interstate Highway System was developed during an era when truck freight represented a far smaller share of total highway traffic than it does today. Modern interstate corridors in many regions carry truck volumes approaching or exceeding 40 percent of total traffic, placing significant strain on infrastructure originally intended for substantially lighter freight demand. As the demand continues to grow due to e-commerce, reshoring of manufacturing, and expanded agricultural exports, the absence of a middle corridor forces commercial traffic onto congested northern and southern interstates, which increases shipping times, fuel costs, pavement deterioration, and supply chain vulnerability.

The economic development implications for underserved interior regions are equally significant. Communities located between the I-70 and I-40 corridors have historically experienced lower rates of industrial recruitment, slower population growth, and reduced private capital investment because of limited interstate accessibility. Modern manufacturers, distribution firms, and logistics operators prioritize locations with immediate interstate access due to predictable shipping costs and labor mobility. A middle corridor would open these regions between I-70 and I-40 to industrial site development, warehousing, tourism growth and advanced manufacturing recruitment. The resulting increase in taxable commercial property, freight activity, and workforce participation could strengthen regional economies that have otherwise struggled to compete for major investment projects.

Agriculture and energy transportation further reinforce the economic necessity of a middle corridor. The proposed service area includes some of the nation’s most productive agricultural land, major poultry and livestock operations, timber production regions, and growing renewable energy sectors. Farmers and producers in these areas currently face higher transportation costs because products must travel long distances, north or south, to reach interstate-grade infrastructure. A direct corridor would improve access to inland ports, rail intermodal facilities, river terminals, and export markets, reducing logistical inefficiencies throughout the supply chain. Improved freight reliability would also enhance food security and reduce price volatility by accelerating movement of commodities to processors and population centers.

From a national competitiveness perspective, a middle corridor represents not merely regional transportation upgrades, but a strategic economic infrastructure investment. The United States is entering an era where freight resilience, domestic manufacturing capacity, and inland logistics efficiency are increasingly tied to economic security. Existing east-west interstates are approaching capacity in many metropolitan areas, and future freight growth will intensify congestion costs nationwide. Establishing the East-West TransAmerica Corridor between I-70 and I-40 would expand the nation’s transportation redundancy, support military and emergency mobility, strengthen rural economic participation, and create a more balanced national development pattern. Over the long-term, the corridor would function as both an economic catalyst for underserved regions and a pressure-relief valve for the broad interstate system, producing benefits that extend well beyond the states directly served.

A PROJECT RE-ENERGIZED

With a new Board of Directors, we’ve taken a new approach of making it a national-scale board. It’s not just a Cape Girardeau project. Our current Board of Directors is composed of members from Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky. Expanding our member states has added a much needed national perspective to the group. We look forward to adding more members from other states in the months ahead.

The organization had been dormant for nearly a decade, with no progress. We dusted it off and brought some new life into it. Not everyone in our region is behind the idea of change involving a new interstate, but just think about where we would be right now without I-55.

While the TransAmerica Corridor is busily working to rebuild its national coalition, you can find parts of the I-66 Corridor project under construction. It’s incredible that the Kentucky Highway Plan (2026-2032) has added I-66 again. Over in Welch, West Virginia, the Coalfields Expressway is adding more divided four-lane construction right now. The King Coal Highway (the foundation for I-73 in West Virginia) is also currently under construction. That project lay dormant for 30 years, and is part of the reason Kentucky stopped work on I-66. Some of the work is done in Mingo County, with an additional set of lanes being added now. Over in Bluefield, more miles are under construction for its divided four-lane segments of the King Coal Highway.

Last August, I joined Missouri State Representative Barry Hovis, in a meeting with Las Vegas City Managers about I-66 and the TransAmerica Corridor. It was the first time anyone in Las Vegas has heard of the project since Walt Wildman got them to support it in the 1990s. They loved the idea. Southern Nevada has no east-west interstate connection, and the Nevada DOT Director noted it would help provide redundancy.

THE OZARK PARKWAY

In May 2024, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet released a feasibility study on a new two lane bridge connecting Barlow to the I-57 Bypass at Cairo, Illinois. It was conducted in order to see if it was viable to relocate the US 51 bridge at that location. The study found that it manifestly was not—the anticipated cost would be $1.2+ billion (for a two-lane bridge). KYTC recommended a new US 51 bridge be located upstream of the current facility.

This is when I picked up the phone and called Earl Norman. With a chance of a connection gone, the best path forward was still I-66 across southern Illinois. He met with Shad Burner, the CEO of SEMO Redi, Inc. to begin the process to set up a regional meeting in Cape Girardeau, and I offered to donate a video to the cause. In the script, I called the section in southeast Missouri the “Ozark Parkway.” Both Earl and Shad agreed to proceed with it. The idea is simple: let’s continue the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge highway (Missouri Route 74) divided four-lane expressway out to Van Buren in southeast Missouri. If we connect to US 60 at Van Buren, we’ve finally connected the system here in this part of the state.

We’ve worked hard to push this project forward. Shad has been working to push the MPO and RPC process. From the I-66 perspective, the TransAmerica Corridor, Inc. organization has worked to expand its national coalition. We’ve also secured over 50 letters of support from those three states. The good news is that the Ozark Parkway is now a Tier 1 Priority on the MoDOT Unfunded Needs List. It’s taken a lot of people working hard to get that done, though I think a statewide feasibility study for I-66 is the best way forward.

BUILDING THE FUTURE, ONE SEGMENT AT A TIME

Today, much of the TransAmerica Corridor already exists in tangible form: modern divided four-lane expressways through rural landscapes, bypasses around towns, and upgraded or expanded highways that quietly carry the weight of regional economies. If the TransAmerica Corridor project teaches anything, it’s that how we get transformative infrastructure built is a different process than how the original system was built. These High Priority Corridors are constructed piece by piece, mile by mile, over decades. What remains today is to finish out the gaps and connect the already existing segments into a seamless whole.

In the next several years, the Coalfields Expressway in West Virginia, from Beckley to Welch, will be complete. It won’t be fully interstate-grade, but the foundation will be there. The same can be said for the King Coal Highway through West Virginia. This becomes the basis for I-73 in that state, and the shared, common corridor with the TransAmerica Corridor route. Additionally, the state of Ohio is finalizing a feasibility study in December 2026 for I-73 in its state, at the cost of $1.5 million. This is real progress in those states, which allows the TransAmerica Corridor to cross the Appalachians.

Recently, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet released its study for expanding the Hal Rogers Parkway into a divided four-lane highway, from Somerset and London over to Hazard. This expansion will become yet another major segment to the I-66 Corridor, once complete.

HOW WE MOVE ADVOCACY INTO ACTION

The best way forward in Missouri is a statewide study with logical termini as I-55 at Cape Girardeau and I-49 at Jasper. US 60 will become the spine. In southeast Missouri it would create a beltway from Van Buren to Poplar Bluff, to Marble Hill and Cape Girardeau, with Sikeston in the south, and converging at Ullin and Cairo in southern Illinois.

What we need to be doing here in Missouri and Illinois is copying what Ohio’s leaders are doing and proceed with statewide feasibility studies. While the Ozark Parkway presents a regional opportunity to lay the foundation, it makes so much sense to complete a statewide feasibility study for I-66. Presently, we’ve established an I-66 Work Group between southeast Missouri and southern Illinois—the first time this has happened in over a decade. From this, a federal grant could open the door to a joint project between Illinois and Missouri by which feasibility studies could be funded and conducted.

The future of the regions between I-70 and I-40, including southeast Missouri where this project originated, will be decided by what we do now in order to complete the Interstate 66 TransAmerica Corridor. The best way to create growth remains in direct access to the national economy and markets. This corridor will allow us to increase those connections in the years ahead.

From Kansas to Virginia, progress is being made. These states are finishing their portions of the project as funding allows. The next steps forward will depend on if the leaders of this region are willing to commit to get this done.

Robert Spurlock is the President/Executive Director  of TransAmerica Corridor, Inc.  To learn more about the organization visit www.transamericacorridor.com or contact him at Robert.Spurlock@transamericacorridor.com.