Interstate 65 (I-65): Route, States, Crash Record and Bridges

How long is I-65?

As of January 2026, the FHWA Route Log assigns 884.97 miles to I-65. Sixteen Interstates have more miles in that table. Wikipedia and Interstate Guide both measure the road at 887.30 miles from Mobile to Gary.

Nashville explains most of the 2.33-mile gap. I-65 shares 2.60 miles with I-24 and 1.00 mile with I-40 there, and the Route Log counts those miles under the other two routes, so its Tennessee row shows 120.13 miles where Wikipedia lists 121.71. Counting the shared Nashville miles gives 888.57, slightly above the published length, and that is the figure behind the crash rates on this page. Indiana's row carries a note for 2.13 miles shared with I-70 in downtown Indianapolis.

Alabama holds the longest piece at 366.09 miles, a little over two-fifths of the route. Indiana has 261.43, Kentucky 137.32 and Tennessee 120.13.

Where I-65 starts and ends

The southern end is the I-10 interchange in Mobile, Alabama. The northern end is in Gary, Indiana, southeast of Chicago, at US 12 and US 20, which together form the Dunes Highway.

Going north it passes Montgomery and Birmingham, then Decatur, where I-565 connects it with Huntsville. Tennessee's stretch centers on Nashville. In Kentucky the road reaches Bowling Green and Louisville before it crosses the Ohio River into Indiana, where it serves Columbus, Indianapolis and Lafayette on the way to Gary.

Interstate junctions along I-65

Junctions are listed from Mobile north, beginning with I-10 at the southern end. Alabama has the most of any state: after I-10 come I-85 in Montgomery, then I-59, I-20 and I-22, the last of them in Birmingham. I-65 runs for short distances with I-40 and then I-24 in Nashville. In Louisville it meets I-64 and I-71 at the Kennedy Interchange. Indiana's four start with I-74 and I-70 at Indianapolis, where I-65 and I-70 share the downtown stretch, and finish with I-80 and I-90 close to the northern end.

Fatal crashes on I-65

From 2020 through 2024, FARS counts 563 people killed in crashes on I-65, about 113 a year. Spread over the route's 888.57 miles, that is 12.7 deaths per 100 route miles a year, roughly a third above the 9.5 average for the whole Interstate network. That rate is 13th highest among the 56 Interstates long enough to rank. Deaths peaked at 136 in 2021, then dropped to 94 in 2023 and 92 in 2024, about a third fewer than the peak year.

Alabama had 257 of the deaths, close to half, and its rate of 14.0 is the highest of the four states. Kentucky follows at 13.8 and Tennessee at 12.6, while Indiana has the lowest rate on I-65 at 10.2. Jefferson County, Alabama, leads all counties with 41 deaths, ahead of Mobile County with 39. Davidson County, which holds Nashville, had 35, and two more Alabama counties round out the top five: Butler with 25 and Montgomery with 24.

Counties with the most I-65 crash deaths

Bridges on I-65

I-65's main line crosses 816 bridges in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory. Thirteen are in Poor condition, about 1.6 percent, and 532 are Fair. Kentucky has the highest share of Poor bridges, 6 of its 109, against a single one among Indiana's 313. Alabama's 329 bridges are the most of any state, and the median bridge on I-65 dates to 1967.

At Louisville, two Ohio River bridges now carry one direction each. The Kennedy Bridge opened to I-65 on December 6, 1963, and handled both directions until the Abraham Lincoln Bridge, a 2,100-foot cable-stayed span, opened on December 6, 2015. The Lincoln carried both directions while the Kennedy was rehabilitated. On October 10, 2016, five of the Kennedy's six lanes reopened southbound, and the Lincoln became northbound only. Near the southern end, the General W.K. Wilson, Jr. Bridge carries I-65 across the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta between Mobile and Baldwin counties.

Tolls on I-65

The only tolls on I-65 are at the Ohio River. FHWA's January 2023 inventory lists the J. F. Kennedy Bridge and the Abraham Lincoln Bridge, both run by a joint board of Kentucky and Indiana agencies. Northbound drivers use the Lincoln and southbound drivers the Kennedy, so a trip through Louisville pays once in each direction. RiverLink has collected the toll electronically since December 30, 2016. Starting July 1, 2026, a passenger vehicle pays $2.79 per crossing with a transponder, $4.18 with a prepaid account but no transponder, or $5.57 by mail through Pay-by-Plate.

The table shows 1.49 miles for each bridge, which is how long FHWA measures the whole facility to be. The Kentucky Turnpike, the stretch of I-65 between Louisville and Elizabethtown, once charged tolls too; it went free on June 30, 1975, after its bonds were paid off.

I-65 auxiliary routes

I-65 has five three-digit offshoots, and one number is shared by two roads that never meet. I-165 is a 4.90-mile spur serving Mobile and Prichard in Alabama, and also a 70.19-mile route linking Bowling Green and Owensboro in Kentucky. I-265 has 24.48 miles in Kentucky, serving Louisville, Okolona and Jeffersontown, and 13.13 miles in Indiana at New Albany. At Indianapolis, I-465 covers 52.73 miles and meets I-65 twice; the 25 miles of I-65 between those two interchanges carry the name Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds Highway. I-865 adds a 5.03-mile link at Indianapolis, and I-565 runs 22.49 miles to Huntsville.

When I-65 opened, state by state

One part of I-65 was open before the route had a number. The Kentucky Turnpike from Elizabethtown to Louisville opened on August 1, 1956, and the route received its I-65 designation on August 14, 1957. Tennessee opened its first section, at the Alabama line, on November 15, 1958. Alabama's first piece followed on December 10, 1959, and Indiana's on September 14, 1960.

Kentucky finished its share on June 22, 1970, and Tennessee on October 26, 1973. Indiana completed its route on October 15, 1976, with the downtown Indianapolis stretch shared with I-70. The last gap closed on December 19, 1985, when the section from Lewisburg to Warrior, north of Birmingham, replaced a four-lane stretch of US 31.

The states have kept rebuilding it since. Alabama widened I-65 through Montgomery in a $110 million project that ran from 2006 to December 21, 2010, and finished the I-22 interchange in Birmingham on June 20, 2016. In Louisville, the Ohio River Bridges Project broke ground on its Downtown Crossing on June 18, 2013. Also in Louisville, at KY 1065 (the Outer Loop), the main line is 14 lanes wide, the widest point anywhere on I-65.

I-65 traffic and road conditions

If you are looking for today's wreck, backup or closure on I-65, the crash counts here cannot help, since they stop with 2024. Alabama's ALGO Traffic, Tennessee's SmartWay, Kentucky's GoKY and INDOT 511 each post incidents, lane closures and work zones as they happen.

I-65 questions