Michigan Is Decades Ahead of Other States in Completing America’s Next Cross-Country Interstate

You may think the nation's interstate system is complete. After all, the work started in the 1950s under President Eisenhower and today you can zip from coast to coast. However, the system continues to expand.

One of the intestates that grows daily - no exaggeration - is Interstate 69. Long completed in Michigan, the highway has ambitions to stretch all the way to Texas. There are some stretches compete and some stretches only exist on paper.

Interstate 69 was once a modest two-state interstate from Port Huron in Michigan to Indianapolis via Lansing and Fort Wayne.

Indiana has been working on a expansion of the highway between Indy and the southern border at Evansville. The southernmost portion of the highway has been completed but there was a break in the highway just south of Indy. A trade publication covering local government recently reported that Indiana will complete the expressway during 2024.

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That doesn't mean, however, that a Michigan driver can hop the highway and now reach the Mexican border. Many other states trail far behind Michigan in completing I-69.

It's at the Indiana state line that I-69 starts to fall apart. Kentucky has completed a great deal of the interstate but has not completed the highway around Henderson to meet I-69 in Indiana.

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There are small sections (roughly 25 miles in each state) of I-69 complete in Tennessee and Minnesota.

There are anticipated to be sections of I-69 in Arkansas and Louisiana - and neither state has any mileage of the interstate built.

Texas is the final state for Interstate 69 and the highway is very scattered in the state and the interstate splinters into three different branches. When complete I-69 will meet Mexico at Laredo and two other points in the Rio Grande Valley at Pharr and Brownsville.

So when complete, Michigan will have two fully cross country interstates with I-69 joining I-75 which stretches from Sault Ste Marie to south Florida at Miami.