Ready to get your kicks on America’s most iconic road, Route 66? Oh wait, you own an electric car and range anxiety will ruin your trip. But there’s hope for you too, little greenhead, because The Mother Road (whatever's left of it) is growing a network of charging stations.
Governor Pat Quinn’s office recently announced an initiative to build seven-fast charge stations between the metro-east and Chicago on the Mother Road. This means Edwardsville, Carlinville, Springfield, Lincoln, Normal, Pontiac, Dwight and Plainfield will have it’s own DC fast-charging CHAdeMO or CCS units and maybe an additional 240 V Level 2 station.
The $1 million project aims both to aid EV owners in the area or those passing by and needing for a charge, but also to bring more traffic on the iconic Will Rogers Highway.
A nation’s history on a two-lane blacktop
Route 66 was first commissioned in 1926 to link the East to the West, stretching 2,448 miles (3,940 km) between Chicago to Los Angeles. The road started to get popular in the early 1930s, when the Great Depression and a series of sand storms ravishing the Plains pushed people into gathering their belongings in cars and flee to California for a new beginning.
By 1940, this migration became the biggest exodus in the history of the United States, counting over 2.5 million people using it to reach the Western state. That of course, inspired artists, writers and movie producers, further increasing the route’s popularity.
The route also got heavily used by the US Army, which also invested some $70 billion in upgrading the asphalt and building additional infrastructure, but the Route 66 started flourishing after the World War II ended in 1946.
It simply stuck in the minds of the recruits, who returned after the war and started small businesses along the Route, along with other locals to provide food, maintenance, fuel and shelter for whoever wanted to take a ride on the previously-deserted road.
Those were the golden age of both Route 66 and motoring, when the “get your kicks on Route 66” phrase was popular and you couldn’t think of that without also picturing the 1960’s America road yachts, like the Cadillac Eldorado, Chevy Impala and their relatives.
That being said, I'll leave you with famous Nat King Cole's "Route 66" song to contemplate...
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