| Header Type: | UC |
| Country: | USA |
| Type: | ISTEA |
| Route: | Heartland Expressway |
| Alternate Name: | High Priority Corridor 14 |
| Marker Image: | none |
| Map Custom: | yes |
| Map Notes: | Heartland Expressway highlighted in red |
| Length Mi: | 498 |
| Established: | 1988 |
| Allocation: |
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| Direction A: | South |
| Direction B: | North |
| Terminus A: | in Limon, CO |
| Terminus B: | in Rapid City, SD |
| Junction: |
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The Heartland Expressway (also known as the National Highway System High Priority Corridor 14) is a federally-designated High Priority Corridor between Limon, Colorado, and Rapid City, South Dakota in the US. The proposed four-lane corridor is currently under construction, and when completed, will function as the central third of the Ports-to-Plains Alliance, connecting the Ports to Plains Corridor and Theodore Roosevelt Expressway via the Nebraska Panhandle. When completed, the highway will provide multi-lane, divided-highway access to cities including Alliance, Nebraska; Scottsbluff, Nebraska; and Brush, Colorado, bringing long-term economic development and reducing travel times in the region.[1]
The proposed $500 million highway is part of a larger project that would create an international trade corridor from Canada to Mexico for the region's abundant energy and agricultural products, with local community leaders long promoting its completion. Up to $943 million in economic benefits is estimated for the region over a 38-year span as a result of the project, through increased traffic volume, travel time savings, improved connections among trade centers, better labor access, improved access to manufacturing centers, better connections between agricultural centers and markets, better access between raw materials and processors, better access for tourists to local fossil sites,[2] and bring an estimated average of $2.5 million annual savings from accident reduction, 385-950 additional annual jobs, and $9.5 million to $24.8 million in annual earnings.
The project started in 1988, as part of the Nebraska Expressway System program.[3] The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 made it the National Highway System High Priority Corridor 14.[4] However, parts of the program were delayed, including the Heartland Expressway. The long-delayed highway was estimated in 2012 to cost more than $500 million and take 20 years to complete, according to preliminary estimates for the project,[5] with an estimated time of finalizing the highway in the fall of 2018.[6] The project took its first big step when a new interchange was built linking Interstate 80 with about 35miles of expressway between Kimball, Nebraska, and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The highway has been under construction.
The alignment of the Heartland Expressway will largely follow existing highways, with the project mostly consisting of improvements.