I-39 is a relatively recent addition to the USA highway network, and a surprizingly usefull one, too. It carries an impressive amount of through traffic, serving as a sort of 'outer-outer-outer beltline' around the Chicagoland area, used by northwestern to and from eastern and southeastern USA vehicles as well as Wisconsin to and from the south and southwest traffic in order to avoid the congestion of metro Chicago. South of Rockford, after passing through some interesting rock cuts, the scenery quickly embellishes the 'Illinois Flatland' image, where, with limited exceptions, it is a nearly featureless FLAT.
However, in the Rockford area, we have this interesting incomplete interchange with the much older US 20 bypass freeway. It is a typical small metro area 4 lane highway bypass, and is fully interstate compatible. I-39 was opened here in the very early 1980s as nothing more than a relocated US 51, and did not receive the classy signs until several years later. The entire highway to I-55 at Normal was completed in late 1992.
The western I-39/US 20/US 51 interchange is very incomplete, and 'ghost ramp' grading is there for a full freeway-to-freeway interchange with a proposed northward extension into Rockford proper. The strange thing is that I have never found out where this 'extension' is/was intended to go....
I-39 'through' this interchange involves single lane (albeit free-flow) ramps in both directions, but appears very much to be an 'afterthought' routing. It is especially wierd in that the southbound side joins the ramp from EB US 20 as two seperate lanes, and then merges down to one lane, and that single lane merges into the SB 'mainline' (ghost) lanes as though the interchange was complete and fully 'alive' (IDOT should stripe it as two regular through lanes here, until such time that any north extension is ever opened, as it is a BAD, illogical merge).
I-39 is being marked in Wisconsin on a routing that takes it into the northern part of the state (combined with I-90 to the Portage, WI area), but has not yet appeared in Illinois north of its connection with the Northwest Tollway (I-90) about 2 km off the east edge of this map. As of this writing, there are still 'BEGIN' and 'END' I-39 signs just west of the Tollway. I-39 will eventually be added to the Northwest Tollway northward to Wisconsin. This section of the Northwest Tollway is also one of the few toll highways in the USA that is actually marked as a US highway (US 51 uses it from the I-39 interchange to its north end at South Beloit, IL).
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