Interstate 355

Template:Routeboxint Interstate 355 (I-355), also known as the North-South Tollway, is a 20-mile (32 km) interstate highway and tollway located in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, USA (part of a metropolitan area sometimes known as Chicagoland). Although the interstate is known for being a tollway, the tollway portion actually starts south of Army Trail Road, 2 miles (4 km) south of the northern terminus. Exits to U.S. Highway 20 (Lake Street) and Army Trail Road from the north are free, and pre-existed on the freeway portion of old Illinois State Route 53. I-355 is a spur route of Interstate 55. There are two toll plazas on the interstate. I-355's northern terminus is Interstate 290. I-355's South Terminus is Interstate 80. In Chicagoland traffic reports, Interstate 290 north of the tollway and Illinois 53 north of Interstate 90 are also considered to be part of the tollway, even though they are freeways. This is because it is easier to refer to the entire north-south length as a continuous route in traffic reports instead of separating the route into its three distinct parts.

History

Interstate 355 was commissioned in 1989 to ease pressure on nearby Illinois 53, and to a lesser extent, to ease pressure on the rapidly-growing Tri-State Tollway (Interstate 294). Illinois 53 was at that point the main north-south artery through central DuPage County. It frequently suffered from overcrowding, as it was two lanes (one northbound, one southbound) for most of its length. During construction, the highway had to be built around the ecologically sensitive and low-lying DuPage River valley, as well as the Morton Arboretum.

The road opened on December 24th, 1989. As a Christmas gift, the first two days of operation were completely free. Initially, the road was a four lane highway from Illinois State Route 64 (North Avenue) to Interstate 88 (Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) even though it was built wide enough to be six; within the first few years, the two-lane wide shoulders were converted to the third lane in each direction due to overcrowding.

Being one of the newer tollways in the system, the North-South Tollway has also seen considerable improvements earlier than the other tollways. Around the late 1990s, the North-South Tollway became the first tollway to have I-PASS installed; only a few years later, it become the first tollway (and second installation behind the lesser-used Edens Spur) to have I-PASS Express Lanes, a form of Open Road Tolling (ORT).

The Tollway Authority's grander vision of ORT will also be instituted first on the North-South Tollway, when the express lanes are widened one lane to three lanes in each direction. This will allow the number of express lanes to match the number of travel lanes on the tollway, one of the goals of ORT.

Cities of Service

Between I-80 and Addison, I-355 passes through or very near to the following communities:

• Joliet
• Bolingbrook
  
• Woodridge
  
• Downers Grove
  
• Wheaton
  
• Lombard
  
• Glen Ellyn
  
• Addison
  
• Glendale Heights
  
• Itasca