Interstate 88 (I-88): Two Roads, the Reagan Tollway and Safety Data

How long is I-88?

The two state rows in the January 2026 FHWA Route Log add up to 257.97 miles: 140.60 in Illinois and 117.37 in New York. The log's printed total, 258.35, implies 117.75 for New York, the figure Wikipedia uses. The log shows no miles that either road shares with another Interstate, so those two rows are the full length of each road, and the crash rates further down use the same mileage.

Wikipedia gives the Illinois road the same 140.60 miles. For New York it prints 117.75, which is 0.38 more than the Route Log. Interstate Guide prints 117.75 miles in its header and 117.37 in a state table taken from the same FHWA Route Log.

Where I-88 starts and ends

I-88 is two separate roads. The Illinois one starts at I-80 near Silvis and East Moline in Rock Island County, on the eastern side of the Quad Cities. Its first 44 miles or so are a free freeway that bypasses Rock Falls. The toll road begins at US 30 near Rock Falls and continues past Dixon, Rochelle and DeKalb, then through Aurora and Naperville. It ends at I-290 and I-294 in Hillside, in Cook County, after crossing eight counties. IL 110 runs with it the whole way and continues toward Chicago on I-290.

The New York road begins at I-81 just north of downtown Binghamton and heads northeast through Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie and Schenectady counties. It passes Sidney, Oneonta and Cobleskill on the way. Its eastern end is Thruway exit 25A on I-90, in Rotterdam on the west side of Schenectady. NY 7 shares the pavement from exit 1 at Port Dickinson to exit 8 (formerly exit 4) near Sanitaria Springs and stays close beside the freeway most of the way after that.

Interstate junctions along I-88

Junctions are listed west to east, Illinois first. The Illinois road meets I-80 where it begins and I-39 at Rochelle. The Interstates it reaches in the Chicago suburbs are all three-digit spurs (I-355 at Downers Grove, then I-294 and I-290 at the east end), so they are left off the list. In New York the only two are the roads at either end: I-81 at Binghamton and I-90 at Schenectady. That makes four main Interstates in all. Signs at the I-80 interchange point to I-74, but I-88 never meets it.

Fatal crashes on I-88

Crashes on the two I-88s killed 39 people from 2020 through 2024, about 8 a year, and FARS counts 36 fatal crashes behind those deaths. Spread over the route miles, that comes to 3.0 deaths per 100 miles a year, roughly a third of the 9.5 average for all Interstates. Only three of the 56 ranked routes have a lower rate; I-88 is 53rd. The yearly count bounced between 4 in 2020 and 11 in 2021, with 8, 6 and 10 in the years after.

Illinois accounts for almost all of it: 36 deaths and a rate of 5.1. The New York road had 3 deaths on 117.37 miles, a rate of 0.5. DuPage County, where the tollway passes Naperville, Downers Grove and Oak Brook, recorded 17 deaths, more than two-fifths of the route's total. DeKalb County follows with 7, Rock Island and Kane with 4 each, and Ogle with 2.

Counties with the most I-88 crash deaths

Bridges on I-88

The 2025 National Bridge Inventory counts 232 bridges on the I-88 main line, 127 of them in New York and 105 in Illinois, and the median one was built in 1975. Of the total, 55 rate Good, 174 Fair and 3 Poor, or about 1.3 percent. All three Poor bridges are on the New York road. Illinois has none.

The last piece of the New York road, a 1.5-mile link between I-81 and Chenango Bridge that was finished on January 1, 1989, crosses the Chenango River on a 2,650-foot bridge. At the Illinois end, the I-80 Mississippi River Bridge Study looked at four alternatives for the I-80 and I-88 interchange.

Tolls on I-88

FHWA's toll inventory as of January 1, 2023, has one entry for I-88: the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway, operated by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority from US 30 at Rock Falls to I-290. FHWA puts the facility at 96.05 miles, which leaves about 44 miles of free road between I-80 and Rock Falls. The tollway has five mainline plazas: Dixon, DeKalb and Aurora in both directions, Meyers Road eastbound only and York Road westbound only. A one-way trip over the whole tolled part passes four of them, and some interchanges also charge at the ramps. The New York road charges nothing, and we found no toll lanes added to either road since the inventory.

How each road became I-88

The Illinois road is older than its number. The East-West Tollway opened on November 21, 1958, between Hillside and US 30 near Sugar Grove, and was first signed as US 30 Toll. It later became IL 190 and then IL 5. The extension west opened in stages in 1974, reaching DeKalb on August 15, Rochelle on September 29 and Rock Falls on November 15, and the free freeway to East Moline was fully open by 1979. In 1987 IDOT and the tollway authority asked AASHTO to make IL 5 an Interstate, because federal speed law then allowed 65 mph only on rural Interstates. AASHTO approved I-88 on May 25, 1987. After Ronald Reagan died in 2004, the tollway authority renamed the road for him; he grew up in Dixon, one of the towns it serves.

New York's I-88 was not part of the 1956 Interstate plan. It joined the system on December 13, 1968, after the Federal-Aid Highway Act of that year included money for it, and it took over from NY 7 as the main road between Binghamton and Schenectady. Construction reached Duanesburg by 1981 and Schenectady by 1985. The $20.3 million link to I-81 was finished on January 1, 1989, and the same year the road was named the Warren M. Anderson Expressway, after a former majority leader of the state Senate.

On June 28, 2006, Carrs Creek washed out a 50-foot section of the New York road southwest of Unadilla. Two truck drivers went into the gap and were killed. The road reopened on August 31, 2006.

I-88 traffic and road conditions

Crash reports, lane closures and roadwork for I-88 come from each state's traveler site. The two roads are in different parts of the country, so you only need the one for the state you are driving in. Illinois is listed first.

I-88 questions