This Illinois highway was named the most-feared route in state, driver survey says
Route 24 — a 255-mile stretch of open road that runs through Illinois from the Mississippi River to the Indiana border — has been deemed the “most-feared route” in the state.
That’s according to a survey by Gunther Mitsubishi, which asked 3,000 drivers across the country to name the road in their state they most fear becoming stranded on.
Route 24 may instill the most trepidation among some Illinois drivers, but it ranked No. 19 on the list overall, which covers all 50 states.
Here’s a look at why U.S. Route 24 in Illinois might have drivers so uneasy, and what the state is doing about it.
How does Route 24 compare to other feared roads in the US?
Taking the No. 19 spot, the survey ranks Route 24 just behind Route 2 Michigan. That’s the isolated stretch of highway that runs through the state’s Upper Peninsula, which gets heavy snow and average temperature lows of -20 degrees in the winter.
The survey ranks these roads as the 10 “most feared routes” in the U.S. The top five generally pass through vast, desolate swaths of land with few services and possibly dangerous weather hazards, including lava flows or 120-degree heat.
New Mexico: U.S. Route 285
California: Death Valley Road (SR-190)
Texas: U.S. Route 90
Hawaii: Saddle Road (Hawaii Route 200)
Nevada: U.S. Route 50 “The Loneliest Road in America”
South Dakota: U.S. Route 14A (Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway)
Alaska: Dalton Highway (AK-11)
New York: State Route 17
Mississippi: U.S. Route 49
Route 24 through Illinois
Like many roads in Illinois, maintenance and improvements have fallen behind along some parts of U.S. 24.
According to the Rebuild Illinois initiative, the state “has not had a comprehensive, multi-year capital plan since 2009,” and the overall infrastructure has a C rating, with tens of billions of dollars of deferred maintenance.
For Route 24 in particular, the road narrows from a four-lane, undivided highway to a two-lane road where vehicles move past each other at high speeds.
Those portions of the road, one example being the two-lane portion that connects Canton to Peoria, have raised concerns from some drivers about safety.
In 2020, for example, drivers there told a CIproud.com reporter about frequent accidents along the route and speeding drivers weaving between lanes.
“They think it’s a race track when you’re going back and forth to Peoria,” one regular driver along the route told CIproud.com.
A separate report published in the Peoria Journal Star in 2017 noted there were 23 crashes between 2010 and 2015 involving left turns onto Route 24 from a dangerous intersection at Spring Creek Road in the town of Washington. Those crashes produced 30 injuries, according to the Journal Star.
What is the state doing to improve safety along Route 24?
Asked about progress on the state’s efforts to improve Route 24, Illinois Department of Transportation spokesperson Paul Wappel cited the multi-year Rebuild Illinois project. The capital plan will invest more than $33 billion into various infrastructure improvements over a six-year period. The plan includes $25.4 billion for roads and bridges alone.
As for Route 24 specifically, Wappel pointed to several improvements made to the route since 2020, including new bridges, a signalized intersection and more.
A piece of the broader Rebuild Illinois plan will target an 8.6-mile segment of Route 24 between Banner and Kingston Mines, just outside of Peoria. That project will allocate $135 million to expand U.S. 24/Illinois 9 to four lanes and replace bridges.
