Interstate 20 (I-20): Route, Miles by State, Bridges and Safety

How long is I-20?

Measured end to end, I-20 is 1,539.38 miles long, the figure both Wikipedia and Interstate Guide print. The FHWA Route Log, current to January 2026, credits it with 1,409.82 miles, about 130 fewer.

Nearly all of that gap is in Alabama. I-20 and I-59 share a single roadway from Meridian, Mississippi, to Birmingham, and the Route Log books most of the Alabama part of that pavement to I-59. That leaves Alabama with 84.89 miles of I-20 on the federal list, while Wikipedia counts 214.70 miles between the Mississippi and Georgia lines. Texas has the longest piece by either count, 635.64 Route Log miles. On the federal list Georgia comes next at 201.53, then Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Where I-20 starts and ends

I-20 begins at an interchange with I-10 near Kent, in Reeves County, Texas, about 40 miles east of Van Horn. It ends at I-95 in Florence, South Carolina, where an I-20 business route carries traffic about 2 more miles into town.

Heading east, the route serves Odessa, Midland and Abilene, then passes south of downtown Fort Worth, runs through Arlington and Dallas, and bypasses Longview. It crosses Louisiana by way of Shreveport and Monroe and enters Mississippi on the Vicksburg Bridge over the Mississippi River. After Jackson and Meridian it runs with I-59 through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, passes Talladega Superspeedway and Anniston, and reaches Atlanta. The last leg goes through Augusta, over the Savannah River, and around the north side of Columbia to Florence.

Interstate junctions along I-20

The list starts where I-20 leaves I-10 and runs west to east. I-35 is on it twice because I-20 crosses both of its branches in the Metroplex, I-35W in Fort Worth and I-35E in Dallas, and I-59 comes up more than once along the shared stretch from Meridian to Birmingham. In downtown Atlanta, I-20 meets I-75 and I-85 together at the Capitol Hill interchange, where those two share the Downtown Connector. Two interchanges on the route have carried the nickname Malfunction Junction: I-20, I-59 and I-65 in Birmingham, since reconfigured, and I-20 at I-26 in Columbia, which SCDOT is rebuilding.

Fatal crashes on I-20

The 999 deaths on I-20 from 2020 to 2024 average out to about 200 a year. The count rose from 199 in 2020 to 236 in 2021, the worst year in the period, and was down to 183 in 2023 and 184 in 2024. Over the route's full length that comes to 13.0 deaths per 100 miles a year, compared with a network average of 9.5, and makes I-20's death rate the 11th highest of 56 ranked routes.

Georgia's 201.53 miles were the deadliest part of the route, with 233 deaths and a rate of 23.1. DeKalb County east of Atlanta had 62 of them and Fulton County 39. Texas had the most deaths of any state, 420, with Tarrant County at 66, Dallas County at 59 and Harrison County in East Texas at 29. Texas's rate was 13.2 and Louisiana's 11.0. Alabama had the lowest, 5.7, counted over the 214.70 miles Wikipedia gives for I-20 in the state, including the long stretch it shares with I-59.

Counties with the most I-20 crash deaths

Bridges on I-20

I-20's main line rides on 1,542 bridges in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory, 813 of them in Texas. Twenty-five rate Poor, under 2 percent. Louisiana has 11 of those and Mississippi 10, while Texas and Georgia have none. Half of the bridges were built in 1967 or earlier.

In downtown Birmingham, I-20 and I-59 cross the city on an elevated viaduct that was finished in 1971 for 80,000 vehicles a day and later carried about 160,000. Alabama replaced it, closing that stretch for a year, and the new bridges opened in January 2020.

Tolls on I-20

FHWA's January 2023 toll inventory has no facility on I-20, and we found no toll or express lanes opened on it since then. A trip from Kent to Florence pays no tolls in any of the six states.

I-20 auxiliary routes

The Route Log gives I-20 three numbered spurs and loops. I-220 is really two roads with one number, one at Shreveport and Bossier City in Louisiana and another at Jackson, Mississippi. I-520 crosses the Savannah River to serve Augusta, North Augusta and Belvedere, and its South Carolina leg, the Palmetto Parkway, reached I-20 at exit 6 in December 2009. I-820 is the Fort Worth loop. Interstate Guide also counts I-459 around Birmingham and I-359 in Tuscaloosa as I-20 branches, but the Route Log files both under I-59.

How I-20 was built and rerouted

I-20 dates to August 14, 1957. Georgia built its section between August 1958 and November 1980. In South Carolina the first piece to open was the Savannah River bridge in 1965, and the last, from US 401 to I-95 at Florence, opened in August 1975.

Texas approved a 634-mile route in 1962 but did not settle the path through Dallas-Fort Worth until 1971. Until 1977 I-20 used the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. That year it moved south to its current line through Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Dallas and Mesquite, and the old road became I-30, US 80 and Spur 557.

Atlanta's Capitol Hill interchange was rebuilt as a three-level structure between 1985 and 1988, and Jackson's Stack at I-55 got new flyovers from 2003 to 2006. In Columbia, the $1.7 billion Carolina Crossroads project to replace the I-20 and I-26 cloverleaf broke ground on November 8, 2021. By August 2026, SCDOT had construction underway on the next phase, which widens I-20 between US 378 and Bush River Road and replaces its bridges over the Saluda River.

I-20 traffic and road conditions

A lot of I-20 searches are about a wreck or closure happening right now. Each state on the route posts those on its own traveler site, and the links below run west to east, from DriveTexas to 511SC.

I-20 questions