Falls-to-Falls Corridor

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The Falls-to-Falls Corridor (officially The Falls-to-Falls Corridor--United States Route 53 from International Falls on the Minnesota/Canada border to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin) is, by the United States federal government, a recognized trade corridor.

In the 1990s, the federal government listed the corridor as a priority for development. The primary development planned is infrastructure-related, specifically, a highway improvement project designed to spur economic development in northwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota by upgrading U.S. Highway 53 to full expressway standards from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to International Falls, Minnesota. I-535 forms the only section of the route that is part of the Interstate Highway System.

[edit] Minnesota

Federal funding for the project in northern Minnesota was $940k in 2003[1] and $600k in 2004[2]. At present, with the exception of several miles within the city of Duluth, the route is completed as expressway as far north as the north side of Virginia, leaving approximately 90 miles of the route as-yet incomplete.

[edit] Wisconsin

With the exception of a 5-mile stretch in urban Superior, the entire route within Wisconsin is completed to freeway or expressway standards. The Superior section is, however, multi-lane divided highway. On the south end of the corridor, the connection to I-94 is a 7.5 mile stretch through the Eau Claire-Chippewa Falls conurbation. After years of legal and political wrangling, the decision was made in the late 1990s to bypass the current route, rather than to upgrade the present highway to freeway standards. The northern half of this bypass, as far south as WIS 312 was opened to traffic in mid-2005. The southern half of the bypass, which includes a new pair of multilane bridges over the Eau Claire River, goes mostly through Altoona and includes new interchanges with WIS 312, U.S. Highway 12 and WIS 93. The U.S. Highway 12 single point urban interchange became Wisconsin's first and won multiple awards in 2005 and 2006. This section of the bypass was opened mid-morning on August 21st, 2006.