Massachusetts Route 3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the U.S. Route that continues (State) Route 3 north into New Hampshire, see U.S. Route 3 (Massachusetts). For the Route 3 that existed in the early 1920s, see Route 3 (New England).
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| Route 3 |
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| Length: | 55.71[1] mi (89.65 km) | ||||||||
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| Formed: | 1926 | ||||||||
| South end: |  US 6 in Bourne |
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| Major junctions: |
 US 44 in Plymouth  I-93/US 1 in Braintree |
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| North end: |   US 3/Route 2A in Cambridge[1] |
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Route 3 is a southward continuation of U.S. Route 3, connecting Cambridge, Massachusetts with Cape Cod. All of it, except for the northernmost end in downtown Boston and Cambridge, is a freeway.
The section from Boston to Braintree is also marked as Interstate 93 and U.S. Route 1 and is known in downtown Boston as the Central Artery, and south of downtown as the Southeast Expressway. In Braintree, I-93 and US-1 split to follow the Yankee Division Highway to Interstate 95, and Route 3 continues south on its own, as the Pilgrims Highway. This section extends to a junction with U.S. Highway 6 in Sagamore, just before the Sagamore Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal where where Route 3 originally ended at rotary. A project to replace this rotary with a grade-separated interchange is almost complete. Northbound traffic was routed off the rotary in October 2006 and southbound traffic did the same in November 2006.
Because Route 3 and U.S Highway 3 are treated as the same route by the Massachusetts Highway Department (MassHighway), mileposts move continuously upward from Bourne to the New Hampshire border, some have suggested the entire highway be signed as U.S. 3. Others have suggested that the Pilgrim's Highway portion of the route from Braintree to Cape Cod deserves an interstate designation, most logically a spur route from Interstate 93, or that I-93 itself be routed along the highway to Cape Cod.
[edit] Miscellanea
Route 3 was one of the freeways whose exits were once numbered with the "25 is 128" system, in which the Braintree split was numbered "Exit 25" (due to it being the exit for Route 128), with numbers increasing away from Boston and decreasing toward Boston. Under the old system, the Sagamore Rotary was (on paper) "Exit 43". When the first 22 miles of the highway were resurfaced in 1975-76, the new numbers were instituted in that section. When the Braintree section was resurfaced in 1978, the rest of the new numbers were posted, leaving a 2-year gap when half the highway was on the new system while the other half was on the old system. During that time, the exit to Route 14 was "Exit 11" northbound and "Exit 33" southbound.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Executive Office of Transportation, Office of Transportation Planning - 2005 Road Inventory. AASHTO however lists the end of US 3 at US 20 after it crosses the BU Bridge from Memorial Drive. If US 3 now ends at MA 2A, this has not been officially approved by that organization and MassHighway has yet to apply for this change.
[edit] External links
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