St. Louis to NC--route with least construction--I 40 or I 64?

[Marymn]

HELP! We are leavings Sat., June 8 and need to know whether to take the I 64 route thru Kentucky, or the I 40 route thru Tennessee. Is there major daytime road construction that makes one route better than the other?

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

On the "I-40 Route": The Illinois Department of Transportation reports lane closures and speed reductions on I-64/I-57; The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet reports work on I-24 with both lane restrictions and speed reductions; and Tennessee reports construction in several spots on I-64 and around Nashville as well as 12 separate construction sites on I-40 east of Nashville.

On the "I-64 Route", The same Illinois warnings about I-57/I-64 apply and there are further lane reductions and speed reductions on I-64 as well; There is "major road construction" with lane closures and speed reductions on I-64 in Kentucky; and some of the same I-40 warnings in Tennessee will also apply.

Fortunately North Carolina does not seem to have much major construction going on at the moment.

AZBuck

[Foy]

.....I have a pronounced preference for the I-40 route from St Louis to my home in Raleigh, NC. The primary reason for the preference is that the ups and downs in the WV mountains are many and cover about 130 miles of I-77 south of Charleston, WV. It's admittedly been 11 years since I traveled I-77 in WV, but the last time I did it was the roughest, most beat-up section of concrete Interstate I'd ever seen. The I-40/24/57 route to Mount Vernon, IL is only 20 miles further than I-77/I-64, too, and notwithstanding some hilliness west of Knoxville, TN, where I-40 crosses the Cumberland Plateau, the I-40 route is much "flatter", making for fewer long grinds uphill behind slow tractor-trailers. I-64 west from Charleston, WV into KY runs along a gritty industrial area and the Kanawah River, itself an industrial transportation corridor. Not particularly scenic and often carrying much truck traffic.

On my next trip out West, I'll again avoid the WV route but will likely run up the "future I-73/74 corridor" of US 52 from Winston-Salem, NC to I-77 just below the NC-VA line, thence up to I-81 at Wytheville, VA. There I'll take I-81 south back to I-40 just east of Knoxville, TN. Doing this adds but about 15 miles to the route, but avoids some congestion along older segments of I-40 between Winston and Asheville, as well as avoiding the 50 mile segment from Asheville into TN, where I-40 is as narrow, curvy, and steep as any Interstate I've ever seen. I feel fairly sure the additional miles are easily recovered in travel time, and the scenery as you head up I-77 to Fancy Gap, thence southwest down I-81, is very nice.

And about that construction: There was major construction under way at Mount Vernon, IL in late 2011 and early 2012 when I passed through on 3 separate trips. It involved the segment where I-57 and I-64 are duplexed, meaning running on the same piece of pavement. Major overpass construction, etc, so perhaps that's a long-running project and is the subject of the construction information AZ Buck so kindly mentioned. Oh, and neither I-64 nor US 64 pass through Nashville, TN, but US 64 does pass through Nashville, NC, east of Raleigh.

Foy