Unlike the agony that the I-69 project seems to cause, the Hoosier Heartland Highway seems generally to be a happy proposition up here in Lafayette. The Journal & Courier has an article on the progress. The Hoosier Heartland is a four lane, mostly limited access, mostly four lane highway from Lafayette to Fort Wayne. Some day, this will hopefully be augmented by the Fort to Port project that will expand US 24 from Fort Wayne to Toledo. I don’t think there is anything currently on the drawing board from Lafayette, but one day they should at least expand US 231 from Lafayette down to I-74. Something from Lafayette to I-57 would also seem to make sense, though that’s a lot more ambitious.
I-69 extension and Rt 24 ( Peoria to Toledo)would both help people go where they want to go.Another route ,Chicago to Florida, in pre-interstate days, was Route 41( now partially diverted to route 63).It’s been greatly improved over the years and the last time I drove it there was major upgrading and road repair between Vincennes and Evansville,but the biggest bottleneck still is there is no by-pass around Terre Haute. Many people still use this route to go south( because it is most direct).The interstate ‘road to Florida’ now from Chicago goes through Indianapolis( another bottle neck even with interstates) then backtracks to Nashville,before it again turns SE..Evansville connects very efficiently to Florida going south from there,but we need improvement to Chicago. Lets rejoice route 30 now has an efficient by-pass around Ft Wayne. I can still hear my dad cussing about Ft Wayne traffic back in the 50’s.
Fort Wayne to Toledo is still awful. As far as I can tell, you have a choice between a frustrating and dangerous trip over US 24 or a long trip up I-69 to the Toll road.
A practical solution for this ‘Peoria-Toledo Expressway’would be to upgrade highway 24 in Il and IN,making it 4-lane with limited access, and then build a connector from Ft Wayne to I-75 near,but north of Findlay,OH.Then connect highway 30 to I-75 just south of Findlay.That would also streamline highway 30,which has been greatly upgraded in Ohio and is a very fast drive until we get into Indiana.Then we’d have up 2 travel corridors through a highly-traveled part of the country…perhaps by the year 2050 plans may get going…
One note about that — the Hoosier Heartland basically upgrades US 24 all the way from Fort Wayne to Logansport, but then veers southwest on State Road 25 from Logansport to Lafayette. (If it, instead, upgraded US 24 west from Logansport, it would go through Monticello, Reynolds, Wolcott, Goodland, and Kentland before getting to Illinois and then on to Peoria.)
Actually, that’s very interesting because when I was a U of I student in Champaign-Urbana the preferred way to drive to W. Lafayette was via IL-9 and IN 26,which went right into Purdue campus as I remember.I-57 hadn’t been built yet. Connecting Lafayette to an EW corridor would make more sense than buiding directly west through Kentland. There was no ‘good way’ to go from Champaign-Urbana either to Purdue or to IU at Bloomington,and these were fairly common treks for sports fans. So it would also be less road building to connect in Illinois at I-57,directly west of Lafayette. One big service 1-69 will do in Indiana (and for other Big 10 fans who travel) is put Bloomington and IU on the Interstate system.
My understaning is that US 231 improvements are on the drawing board all the way to I-70. Where these plans rank in priority, I don’t know.