page_title: Interstate 71
section_title: Ohio
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 71 / History / Ohio
caption_attribution_description: English: Highway marker designating Ohio Route 1 (1965)
context_page_description: Interstate 71 is a north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes/Midwestern and Southeastern region of the United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with I-64 and I-65 in Louisville, Kentucky, and its northern terminus at an interchange with I-90 in Cleveland, Ohio. I-71 runs concurrently with I-75 from a point about 20 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, into downtown Cincinnati. Almost three-quarters of the route lies east of I-75, thereby putting it out of its proper place in the Interstate grid. While most odd numbered Interstates are north–south, I-71 however is designated more of a northeast–southwest highway and mainly a regional route, serving Kentucky and Ohio. It links I-80 and I-90 to I-70, and ultimately links to I-40. Major metropolitan areas served by I-71 includes Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland.
context_section_description: Much of Interstate 71 in Ohio was intended to be State Route 1. State Route 1 was originally planned in the 1950s as a second Ohio Turnpike extending southwest to northeast across the state. It was planned to run from Cincinnati to Conneaut and connect with an extension built across the panhandle of Pennsylvania to the New York State Thruway. As the highway was being planned, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was enacted, and the project was converted from a toll road to a freeway. It was designated as State Route 1, since the Interstate Highway numbering system had not yet been implemented. Portions of the freeway began to be completed and opened in 1959 with the new Interstate Highway funding, and they were marked as State Route 1 as well as with their new Interstate Highway number. Since large gaps existed along the corridor where no freeway had yet been completed, existing two-lane or four-lane highways were also designated as State Route 1 in order to complete the route. The State Route 1 signage was removed in 1966 as the Interstate Highway numbers adequately marked the route by then and the state highway numbering was superfluous.
  In Columbus, the portion of Interstate 71 that bounds Worthington's eastern edge was originally called the North Freeway. Costing US$13.8 million, it was constructed south from Route 161, arriving at 11th Avenue by August 1961. It took another year to construct the portion between 11th Avenue and 5th Avenue, mainly due to the need to construct a massive underpass under the Pennsylvania Railroad's Grogan Yard. Today, only two tracks cross the viaduct, and the rest of the structure supports a large, weedy field. By August 1962, the freeway had reached Fifth Avenue, and it reached downtown in November 1962.
  Interstate 71 was originally planned to follow the Innerbelt Freeway northward from its current northern terminus to the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway at Dead Man's Curve when Interstate 90 was planned to continue westward from there along the Shoreway.
  Upon its completion, I-71 replaced State Route 3 as the primary highway link between Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland.
  Between 2004 and 2006, the interchange at milepost 121 in the far northern reaches of Columbus was reconstructed to allow access to the eastern extension of Gemini Place. Before that, it was a simple diamond interchange with Polaris Parkway (Ohio State Route 750).
caption: Columbus-area highway marker designating Interstate 71 and Ohio Route 1 (1965).
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