Portal:U.S. roads/Selected article/September 2012

A 1955 map showing the planned freeways through Kansas City

Interstate 470 (I-470) is a 16.72-mile (26.91 km) loop of the Interstate Highway System that serves to link southeast Kansas City to Independence via Lee's Summit in Jackson County, Missouri. The western terminus of the freeway is at the Grandview Triangle interchange while the northern terminus is an cloverleaf interchange with I-70. The freeway travels west to east through southern Kansas City, curving towards the north at the Lee's Summit Municipal Airport and becoming concurrent with Missouri Route 291 (Route 291) as the highway travels north towards Independence. An intermediate interchange with U.S. Route 50 (US 50) provides access to southern Jackson County, and to Raytown to the north via Route 350, a former alignment of US 50 before the construction of I-470. Plans for a southern freeway were first published in 1955, and the first portions of I-470 were completed in 1970. By 1983 the entire freeway was open to traffic. Since construction two new interchanges have been constructed, along with the expansion of the US 50 cloverleaf. In 2010, part of the freeway was closed by the Grandview Triangle due to a landslide underneath the freeway. Between about 38,000 and 75,000 vehicles use the freeway on an average day.

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