Fox Valley Freeway was the name given to a western suburban bypass of Chicago that was proposed at various times from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. The limited-access highway would have joined with Interstate 55 near Plainfield, Illinois, continuing northwest and north along and east of the Fox River Valley (hence the name), and west of Illinois 59. However, later studies pushed to move the corridor west of the Fox River to roughly parallel Randall Road.
Like many proposed highways, this one brought a lot of opposition. In 1969, a group of concerned citizens from the Barrington area formed the Defenders of the Fox in response to the proposed Fox Valley Freeway. The group's mission was to protect and improve the environment in the ecosystem of the Fox River, its tributaries and watershed, and its first goal was to fight the freeway.
The idea of a western loop around the Chicago suburbs never totally died. In the 1990s, there were still a few legislators that pressed for more study of the Fox Valley Freeway as cities continue growing in the region.
The last time the Fox Valley Freeway was studied in the 1990s, it was proposed that the alignment be to the west of Algonquin towards Randall Road and that the limited-access western bypass of Algonquin continue to the north and bypass McHenry to the west and connect to the proposed bypass of Richmond to form a complete expressway from near Elgin to the Wisconsin state line and the US 12 freeway in Wisconsin.