This project began in 1969, with the passage of state legislation for major highway improvements statewide, including a supplemental freeway, FA 407, from Peoria to Quincy. A corridor study was completed in 1970 and included that portion of the supplemental freeway area from Peoria to IL 61 near the town of Tennessee in McDonough County. Three corridors, A, B, and C, were evaluated, and Corridor A was selected. A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the portion of Corridor A from Peoria to Canton was begun in the mid-1970s, but the study was suspended in 1979. The FA 407 corridor was also included in three feasibility studies for a highway between Chicago and Kansas City, in 1968, 1974, and 1990. All three studies concluded that the highway could be feasible. In 1998, the 336 Coalition, a group of concerned citizens, business people, and local government representatives, was formed to promote the study and construction of a four-lane highway from Peoria to Macomb. The three corridors from the 1970s study, with a new terminus at Macomb, are re-evaluated in this study. f constructed, the project will provide a modern transportation facility from Peoria to Macomb, which will be the final link in a highway system providing western Illinois and its communities greater access to each other and to the regional interstate highway and expressway systems.
The Peoria to Macomb Highway is still in the process of engineering studies; however $5.5 million is dedicated to land acquisition for 2012.
