Interstate 40 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 I-40 highlighted in red | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by TDOT | ||||
| Length | 455.28 mi[1] (732.70 km) | |||
| Existed | August 14, 1957[2]–present | |||
| History | ||||
| NHS | Entire route | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| West end |  I-40 at the Arkansas state line in Memphis | |||
| East end | I-40 at the North Carolina state line near Hartford | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | Tennessee | |||
| Counties | Shelby, Fayette, Haywood, Madison, Henderson, Carroll, Decatur, Benton, Humphreys, Hickman, Dickson, Williamson, Cheatham, Davidson, Wilson, Smith, Putnam, Cumberland, Roane, Loudon, Knox, Sevier, Jefferson, Cocke | |||
| Highway system | ||||
| ||||
Interstate 40 (I-40) is part of the Interstate Highway System that runs 2,556.61 miles (4,114.46 km) from Barstow, California, to Wilmington, North Carolina.[1] The highway crosses Tennessee from west to east, from the Mississippi River at the Arkansas border to the Blue Ridge Mountains at the North Carolina border. At 455.28 miles (732.70 km), the Tennessee segment of I-40 is the longest of the eight states through which it passes and the state's longest Interstate Highway.[5]
I-40 passes through Tennessee's three largest cities—Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville—and serves the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the United States. It crosses all of Tennessee's physiographic regions and Grand Divisions—the Mississippi embayment and Gulf Coastal Plain in West Tennessee, the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin in Middle Tennessee, and the Cumberland Plateau, Cumberland Mountains, Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and Blue Ridge Mountains in East Tennessee. Landscapes on the route vary from flat, level plains and swamplands in the west to irregular rolling hills, cavernous limestone bluffs, and deep river gorges in the central part of the state, to plateau tablelands, broad river valleys, narrow mountain passes, and mountain peaks in the east.[6]
The Interstate parallels the older U.S. Route 70 (US 70) corridor for its entire length in the state. It has interchanges and concurrencies with four other mainline Interstate Highways, and has five auxiliary routes: I-140, I-240, I-440, I-640, and I-840. I-40 in Tennessee was mostly complete by the late 1960s, having been constructed in segments. The stretch between Memphis and Nashville, completed in 1966, was the state's first major Interstate segment to be finished. The last planned section was completed in 1975, and much of the route has been widened and reconstructed since then.
The I-40 corridor between Memphis and Nashville is known as Music Highway because it passes through a region which was instrumental in the development of American popular music. In Memphis, the highway is also nationally significant due to a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case which established the modern process of judicial review of infrastructure projects. Community opposition to the highway's proposed routing through Overton Park led to a nearly-25-year activist campaign which culminated in the case. This resulted in the state abandoning the highway's original alignment and relocating it onto what was originally a section of I-240.
- ^ a b Starks, Edward (January 27, 2022). "Table 1: Main Routes of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". FHWA Route Log and Finder List. Federal Highway Administration. Archived from the original on July 3, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
- ^ Public Roads Administration (August 14, 1957). Official Route Numbering for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways as Adopted by the American Association of State Highway Officials (Map). Washington, DC: Public Roads Administration. Archived from the original on July 19, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2018 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
tennessean975was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Buser, Lawrence (March 22, 1980). "Ceremony On Friday To Open I-240 North". The Commercial Appeal. Memphis. p. 1. Archived from the original on November 8, 2021. Retrieved November 8, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Tennessee Department of Transportation (2014). "Brief History of TDOT" (PDF). Tennessee Department of Transportation. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 23, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
- ^ Maertens, Thomas Brock (June 10, 1980). The Relationship of Maintenance Costs to Terrain and Climate on Interstate 40 in Tennessee (PDF) (Masters thesis). The University of Tennessee. Docket ADA085221. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 27, 2021. Retrieved June 27, 2021 – via Defense Technical Information Center.