Interstate 76 (I-76): Both Roads, Miles by State, Tolls and Crash Data

How long is I-76?

Add the two roads together and the January 2026 FHWA Route Log comes to 623.06 miles for I-76. The western road accounts for 186.91 of them: 184.00 in Colorado and 2.91 in Nebraska. The eastern road has 436.15, made up of 82.26 miles in Ohio, 350.80 in Pennsylvania and 3.09 in New Jersey. Pennsylvania alone holds more than half the total.

Pennsylvania's figure includes the 87.22 miles I-76 shares with I-70 on the turnpike between New Stanton and Breezewood. FHWA writes that overlap on both routes' rows, and I-70's Pennsylvania row is the shorter at 80.71 miles, so the shared pavement sits in I-76's row. Those miles count toward I-76 here and in the crash rates further down. Wikipedia measures the two roads separately, 187.29 miles for the western one and 435.66 for the eastern one, which comes to 622.95. Interstate Guide prints the same 435.66 from an older Route Log, though its state figures add up to 436.27. The widest state gap is Ohio, at 82.26 miles in the federal log against 81.65 on Wikipedia.

Where I-76 starts and ends

The western I-76 begins at I-70 in Arvada, Colorado, and heads northeast past Brighton, Fort Morgan and Sterling, running beside the South Platte River for long stretches in Logan and Sedgwick counties. Past Julesburg it crosses into Nebraska for about three miles and ends at I-80 near Big Springs. Colorado signs the road east and west, while Nebraska signs its short piece north and south.

The eastern I-76 starts at exit 209 of I-71 in Westfield Township, Medina County, Ohio, about six miles east of Lodi, where US 224 carries on to the west. It runs east through Akron and picks up the Ohio Turnpike at I-80 west of Youngstown. From the state line, the Pennsylvania Turnpike carries I-76 about 326 miles to the Valley Forge Interchange in King of Prussia. The turnpike continues east from there as I-276, and I-76 turns southeast as the Schuylkill Expressway into Philadelphia. The Walt Whitman Bridge takes it over the Delaware River, and its last three miles, New Jersey's North-South Freeway, end at I-295 on the line between Mount Ephraim and Bellmawr. Traffic heading south past that point is on Route 42.

Interstate junctions along I-76

Entries run from Colorado eastward, with the western road's three first and the rest picking up in Ohio. The western road meets I-70 where it begins in Arvada and I-25 near Denver, then ends at I-80. I-80 turns up a second time in Ohio, at a separate meeting where the eastern road joins the Ohio Turnpike. I-70 also appears twice in Pennsylvania, once where it joins I-76 at New Stanton and again where it leaves at Breezewood. Other crossings on the eastern road include I-77 in Akron, I-79 at Cranberry Township, I-83 near Harrisburg and I-95 in Philadelphia. Three-digit routes such as I-276 at Valley Forge and I-295 at the New Jersey end are not part of the list.

Fatal crashes on I-76

Fatal crashes on the I-76 main line killed 167 people from 2020 through 2024, about 33 a year across both roads. That works out to 5.4 deaths a year per 100 route miles, well under the 9.5 average for the Interstate system, and I-76 places 44th on a list of 56 ranked routes that runs from the highest rate down. Deaths climbed from 34 in 2020 to 38 in 2021 and 41 in 2022, fell to 24 in 2023 and rose again to 30 in 2024.

The western road accounted for 53 of the deaths, all of them in Colorado, which gives that state a rate of 5.8. Nebraska's 2.91 miles recorded none. On the eastern road, Ohio has the highest rate on either I-76, 8.3, with 34 deaths on 82.26 miles, and Summit County, which includes Akron, had 15 of them. Pennsylvania's 350.80 miles saw 76 deaths but the lowest rate, 4.3. New Jersey had 4 deaths on 3.09 miles, and like Nebraska its stretch is too short to rate. Adams County, Colorado, leads all counties with 18 deaths. Philadelphia County matches Summit at 15, and Morgan County, Colorado, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, follow with 12 each.

Counties with the most I-76 crash deaths

Bridges on I-76

In the 2025 federal bridge inventory, 536 bridges carry I-76's main line, and the median one went up in 1960. Of those, 202 rate Good, 311 Fair and 23 Poor, or about 4.3 percent. Pennsylvania has half the bridges, 268, and 9 of them rate Poor. Colorado has 152 bridges but the most Poor ratings, 10, and the highest Poor share on the route. Ohio has 4 Poor out of 106. None of the 8 bridges in New Jersey or the 2 in Nebraska rate Poor.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike takes I-76 through four mountain tunnels: Allegheny Mountain, Tuscarora Mountain, Kittatinny Mountain and Blue Mountain. Second bores at the last three opened in 1968 and gave each of them four lanes. Three other original tunnels, at Laurel Hill, Rays Hill and Sideling Hill, were bypassed during the 1960s. The Walt Whitman Bridge has carried traffic over the Delaware River since 1957. On June 8, 2011, heat buckled a section of the Schuylkill Expressway near Grays Ferry Avenue.

Tolls on I-76

Three toll facilities appear on I-76 in the list FHWA compiled for January 1, 2023, and all of them are on the eastern road. The Ohio Turnpike charges from the I-80 junction west of Youngstown to the Pennsylvania line. The Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls the stretch from the Ohio line to Valley Forge, and the Delaware River Port Authority's Walt Whitman Bridge collects from westbound traffic only. Driving the whole eastern road eastbound, you pay both turnpikes and cross the bridge free. Westbound, you pay all three. Interstate Guide says the bridge is the only toll on I-76 outside the two turnpikes, so the Akron section and the Schuylkill Expressway cost nothing.

Each mileage figure in the table is the length FHWA records for that whole facility. The Pennsylvania Turnpike's 326.62 miles line up closely with the roughly 326 miles I-76 uses between the Ohio line and Valley Forge, and the Walt Whitman's 4.8 miles split into 1.2 in New Jersey and 3.6 in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Turnpike stopped taking cash in March 2020 and now bills through E-ZPass or toll by plate. FHWA's inventory shows no tolls on the western road in Colorado and Nebraska. E-470, a separate toll road, has an interchange with it.

I-76 auxiliary routes

All five three-digit routes on the 76 number belong to the eastern road. Interstate Guide notes that four of them began as I-180, I-280, I-480 and I-680. I-476 is the longest at 131.50 miles, linking the Philadelphia suburbs with Allentown-Bethlehem and Scranton. I-376 covers 84.66 miles through Pittsburgh and Monroeville, and I-276 is the 30.91-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike east of Valley Forge. I-176 runs 11.34 miles to Reading. I-676 is the only one that leaves Pennsylvania, with 2.89 miles in Philadelphia and 4.72 in Camden, New Jersey. The western road has no auxiliary routes.

From I-80S to I-76, twice

The eastern road grew out of a highway older than the Interstate system. The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened at midnight on October 1, 1940, between Irwin and Carlisle, and became known as America's First Superhighway. Its Philadelphia Extension reached Valley Forge in 1950. Work on the Schuylkill Expressway began in 1949 and finished in 1960, three years after the Walt Whitman Bridge opened. Planners first numbered the Harrisburg-to-Philadelphia stretch I-80S, and federal approval on February 26, 1964, changed it to I-76. In the early 1970s the number moved west over the rest of I-80S to I-71 in Ohio, and in 1972 I-76 and I-676 traded alignments in Philadelphia, which sent I-76 over the Walt Whitman Bridge into New Jersey.

The western road also started as I-80S. It was conceived in August 1958, Colorado built its part first, and by October 24, 1970, the road was open from Sedgwick to Julesburg and the whole route from I-25 to I-80 was complete. In July 1974 it was renumbered I-76, a choice Wikipedia ties to the coming Bicentennial and to 1876, the year Colorado became a state. A six-mile extension west of I-25, begun in 1990, brought the road to I-70 in Arvada, and all of it was open by October 2002.

I-76 traffic and road conditions

If you are checking a crash or closure on I-76 right now, often on the Schuylkill Expressway, the live sources are the state sites. Pull up current conditions on the traveler site of whichever state you are in. The five below cover both roads, with Colorado and Nebraska listed first.

I-76 questions