Woodruff Expressway

The Raoul Wallenberg Expressway, originally known as the Woodruff Expressway, was a controversial plan to link downtown Rockford, Illinois to Interstate 39.

History

In the 1940s and 1950s, as the Northwest Tollway (today's Interstate 90) was being routed through the Rockford area, local politicians debated the costs and benefits of various routings of the tollway. A crosstown route was considered, but turned down in favor of a location miles east of town. By the 1970s, the commercial center of Rockford had shifted from downtown to the East. In effort to draw residents and businesses back to the traditional center of town, the idea of a new crosstown expressway was born.

The highway was to follow the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line from near Interstate 39's interchange with U.S. Highway 20 all the way to downtown Rockford. The said interchange was built in 1984, designed to allow for future extension northward.

Part of this highway would have replaced Woodruff Avenue, a street that parallels the railroad, giving the expressway its original name. The highway was later renamed for Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat noted for saving many Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust.

The project was eventually abandoned due to its heavy financial costs and negative impacts the highway would have on its surrounding neighborhoods.

See also

References

    Sources

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