CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) -- The Illinois Department of Transportation announced both good and bad news on Wednesday.

The flyover ramp from westbound I-74 to southbound I-57 opened at 4 p.m. on Aug. 27, 2025 after four years of construction. The interchange project as a whole, however, won’t be completed until 2027.

The addition is part of a larger $250 million construction plan at the crossroad. It extends a third of a mile and was built with more than one million pounds of steel to ease the flow of traffic.

“We certainly saw the capacity needs and we're hearing it from local leadership all the time,” Transportation Secretary Gia Biagi said. “There are more cars, there are more trucks.”

Safety was a big concern prior to the project, with IDOT officials saying the previous cloverleaf inte

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