Illinois Transportation Infrastructure

              Illinois Transportation
Infrastructure
Illinois' modern transportation system utilizes air, ground transportation, rail and waterways to provide direct routes to every U.S. market and also internation-al ports. Illinois Interstate Highways Illinois lies at the heart of the nation's interstate high-way system. Three coast-to-coast interstates (I-70, I-80, and I-90) pass through Illinois. These are joined by major north-south interstates, including I-39, I-55, and I-57; major east-west interstates that include I-24, I-64, and I-74; as well as I-72, I-94, I-88 and I-155. In all, 2,169 miles of interstate highway serve Illinois. Only two states have more interstate miles. Illinois also ben-efits from major east/west/north/south interchanges lo-cated in more than a dozen communities around the state. Augmenting the interstates are over 16,000 miles of state highways, making the interstate routes access-ible from every region of Illinois. It's no wonder that Illinois is home to more than 6,300 trucking compa-nies. Illinois Railroads Illinois is the center of the nation's rail network. Chi-cago is the largest U.S. rail gateway, and another ma-jor rail center is located in East St. Louis. In all 52 rai-lroads are able to provide service from Illinois to every part of the United States. The recent addition of the Union Pacific’s new Global III Intermodal Facility in Rochelle is the industry’s finest state-of-the-art terminal. This new facility offers customers multiple business advantages, including di-rect interstate highway routes with easy access to ma-jor east-west and north-south markets, the efficient in-terchange of shipments to and from rail connections, and expedited operations of over 25 trains and 3,000 containers daily. The Illinois Air Transport System
Illinois' central location makes it a natural hub for air travel. Home to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport ( one of the world's busiest airport), as well as a major commuter hub at Midway Airport and with more than 137 public use airports, 270 heliports and over 840 aviation facilities, Illinois is a convenient location for those needing air transport. In fact, an airport with commercial airline service or the capability to handle business jets serves virtually every Illinois's city with a population exceeding 30,000. With over 1.7 million tons of cargo and approximately 76.3 million travelers passing through O'Hare in 2006, and more than one ar-rival or departure every minute, it's obvious that trav-elers have maximum scheduling flexibility in Illinois. Illinois Waterways Illinois has 1,118 miles of navigable waterways bor-dering or passing through the state. These waterways provide Illinois with a link between the Atlantic Ocean (through the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes) and the Gulf of Mexico. The significance of the Illi-nois waterways cannot be underestimated. They func-tion as cost-effective highways to move Illinois's prod-ucts to consumers around the globe. The Port of Chicago offers terminals that handle ocean and lake vessels, as well as barges. Owned by the Illi-nois International Port District, the Lake Michigan port is served by 12 railroads and has direct access to In-terstates 90 and 94. There are also 12 other port dis-tricts in Illinois. Both the Illinois International Port District and the Tri-City Regional Port District near St. Louis are Foreign Trade Zones, providing low-cost production and warehousing facilities for imported and export-bound products. (Foreign trade zones also are located in Peoria, Lawrenceville, Rockford and the Quad Cities.) Data Transport Illinois is a leader in telecommunications technology. The state is the birthplace and testing ground for many telecommunications systems; in fact, the first electron-ic switching system in the United States was intro-duced in 1960 in Morris, Illinois and the first commer-cial installation of an Integrated Services Digital Net-work (ISDN) was implemented in Oak Brook in 1986. Since then, Illinois has continued to lead the way in fi-ber optics, digital switching and cellular service.
Today, virtually the entire state has digital switching. Digital switching allows information to travel as digital signals between the originating and receiving