Massachusetts Turnpike
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The Massachusetts Turnpike is the easternmost 138-mile (222 km) stretch of Interstate 90. I-90 and the "Mass Pike" both begin at Logan International Airport in East Boston where they meet Route 1A. The Mass Pike then extends to the western border of the state at West Stockbridge where it ends. The roadway itself continues across the border into New York as I-90 and the Berkshire Connector portion of the New York State Thruway.
Tolls
The Mass Pike is a toll road; it costs $4.60 for a Class 1 passenger vehicle to travel eastbound from Exit 1 in West Stockbridge to Logan Airport in Boston. Following protests from Western Massachusetts residents that their toll money was funding the Big Dig, a Boston highway project, tolls were removed on a western portion of the freeway in July, 1996. As such, no toll is charged for passenger vehicle travel between Chicopee (Exit 6, Interstate 291) and the New York border in either direction. Tolls are collected at toll plazas on the offramps, between West Stockbridge and Route 128/Interstate 95; east of Route 128/I-95, the toll plazas are on the road proper except for the Newton/Wellesley (Exit 16/Route 16) and West Newton (at the Newton Corner Sheraton Hotel overpass; Exit 17) exits. Motorists can opt to pay their tolls using a toll booth operator or utilize the Fast Lane electronic toll collection system, whereby motorists install transponders on their cars (typically on the interior of their windshields) and use special lanes at the toll plazas that recognize the transponders and automatically withdraw the toll amount from the motorists' accounts. Fast Lane is compatible with the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system which is used throughout the northeast corridor.The return trip from Logan Airport costs $3 more, since the Ted Williams Tunnel has a toll only in the westbound direction.
History
Plans for the Turnpike date back to at least 1948, when the Western Expressway was being planned. The original section would have connected Boston's Inner Belt to Newton with connections with US 20 and Route 30 for traffic continuing west. Later extensions would take the road to and beyond Worcester. From the beginning, the corridor was included in federal plans for the Interstate Highway System, stretching west to the New York state line and beyond to Albany.
Also included in the route was the planned Springfield Bypass, which had been proposed to provide a bypass of US 20 in the Springfield area. Part of this route (and that of the eventual Turnpike) used the grading from the never-opened Hampden Railroad. Similarly, the West Stockbridge Bypass provided a new route of Route 102 from Route 183 in Stockbridge west to Route 102 just east of the state line in West Stockbridge; this latter route was built prior to the Turnpike.
The Boston-Springfield Highway Authority was created in 1952, and was soon renamed the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. Construction began in 1955, and the whole four-lane road from Route 102 at the state line to Route 128 in Weston opened on May 15, 1957. The Berkshire Thruway opened on May 26, 1959, connecting the west end to the New York State Thruway mainline south of Albany. Prior to its opening, traffic used Route 22 and US 20 in New York.
After political and legal battles related to the Boston Extension inside Route 128, construction began on March 5, 1962, with the chosen alignment running next to the Boston and Albany Railroad and reducing that line to two tracks. In September 1964 the part from Route 128 east to exit 18 (Allston) opened, and the rest was finished on February 18, 1965, taking it to the Central Artery.
The Interstate 90 label was assigned to the Turnpike in 1959 with the completion of plans for the Interstate Highway System. Early proposals took I-90 across the northern part of the state, along Route 2, but this was rejected as too costly. With the completion of the Boston Extension, that too was designated as I-90.
In 1991, construction began on the extension of the Mass Pike to Logan Airport, via the Ted Williams Tunnel as part of the Big Dig "mega" project. The final extension opened in 2003; the eastern end of I-90 now merges into Route 1A.
Controversy
Since 2001, the Turnpike Authority has come under fire from state politicians in a fight for control of the quasi-state agency. Beginning in 2001, former Massachusetts Acting Governor Jane Swift attempted to fire Christy Mihos, a former Turnpike board member and Jordan Levy, the current Vice-Chairman of the board.
Mihos and Levy had cast votes on the board to postpone a toll hike. Swift objected, saying such a delay was “fiscally irresponsible” and saying the two men "interfered with the effective daily management of the Authority.” [link] [link] Mihos and Levy refused to step down and sued Swift to retain their positions. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) ruled that the Turnpike was “not part of the machinery of the government” and therefore not subject to Swift’s decisions.
Governor Mitt Romney, elected in 2002 during a fiscal crisis, ran on a platform of streamlining state government and eliminating waste. Part of this was the elimination of the Turnpike authority. Romney wanted to fold the Turnpike into MassHighway, the state highway department, operated under the Executive Office of Transportation. A first step to this would be to replace the Chairman of the Board, Matthew J. Amorello with someone loyal to the governor. The governor has the power to appoint members to the board, but the SJC advised in an Amicus brief that there is “nothing in G. L. c. 81A explicitly provides for the removal and reassignment of the chairperson to the position of "member.”” [link] [link]
With this, the governor has taken the case to the court of the public opinion and is putting enormous pressure on Amorello to step down. Amorello has announced he will do so in 2007, after Romney will have left office. Romney continues to press the legislature to give him the power to remove members from the board, specifically the chairman, pointing to a series of financial and construction mishaps over the last several years. However, the legislature has instead sought to keep Amorello on board by extending the terms of various board members to prevent Romney from removing Amorello. [link]
In response to a fatality caused by a tunnel ceiling collapse in July 2006, and in response to Amorello's refusal to resign, Romney has taken legal steps to have Amorello forcibly removed as head of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. [link]
Exits
The Massachusetts Turnpike uses a system of sequential exit numbered interchanges. Since the time that the interchanges were originally numbered, more have been added, leading to situations like Exit 11, which is a minor state route, and 11A, which is a major Interstate Highway 10 miles away.Also, near Boston, some of the interchanges are solely onramps and are not signed as exits, so, for instance, there is no "Exit 21" signed.
| Interchange | Location | Road(s) Crossed | Distance from Last Exit (mi) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Stockbridge |
(MA 41 to Route 102) | 0 | Entry from the New York Thruway and westbound exit/eastbound entrance, with barrier toll to the east |
| 2 | Lee |
(US 20/MA 102) | 7.7 | Prime Outlets; to Lee and Pittsfield |
| 3 | Westfield |
(US 202/MA 10) | 29.8 | To Westfield and Northampton |
| 4 | West Springfield |
(I-91/US 5) | 5.3 | Hartford exit for Eastbound travelers; to Springfield and Holyoke |
| 5 | Chicopee |
(MA 33) | 3.3 | |
| 6 | Springfield |
(I-291) | 2.3 | Stoplight intersection to I-291 |
| 7 | Ludlow |
(MA 21) | 3.6 | To Ludlow and Belchertown |
| 8 | Palmer |
(MA 32) | 7.9 | To Palmer, Ware, and Amherst |
| 9 | Sturbridge |
(I-84/US 20) | 15.7 | Formerly I-86; to Sturbridge, Hartford, and New York City |
| 10 | Auburn/Worcester |
(I-290/I-395/Route 12) | 11.7 | |
| 10A | Worcester |
(MA 146/US 20/MA 122A) | 3.9 | Worcester-Providence Turnpike/Rhode Island Route 146 (aka Eddie Dowling Hwy., Louisquesset Pike, and North Smithfield Expressway) to Providence; part of Route 146 relocation project. The interchange was opened in 1998. |
| 11 | Millbury/Worcester |
(MA 122) | 2.4 | |
| 11A | Westborough |
(I-495) | 9.7 | To New Hampshire, Maine, and Cape Cod |
| 12 | Framingham |
(MA 9) | 5.2 | Home of Staples and Bose; to Framingham and Marlborough |
| 13 | Natick |
(MA 30) | 5.4 | Shoppers World; to Natick and Framingham |
| 14/15 | Weston |
(MA 128/I-95/MA 30) | 6.5 | Barrier toll plaza and interchanges (14 for the eastbound exit and westbound mainline, 15 for the westbound exit and eastbound mainline |
| 16 | West Newton |
(MA 16) | 1.9 | Westbound exit/eastbound entrance; ramp tolls were removed; to West Newton and Wellesley |
| 17 | Newton Corner | 2.5 | To Newton and Watertown | |
| All interchanges east of here are in Boston. | ||||
| 18 | Allston/Brighton | 3.2 | Barrier toll plaza and interchanges (18 for the eastbound exit and westbound entrance, 19 for the mainline tolls, 20 for the westbound exit and eastbound entrance) | |
| 19 | Beacon Park | |||
| 20 | Brighton/Cambridge | |||
| 21 | Massachusetts Avenue | 2 | Westbound entrance only, exit number not marked | |
| 22 | Copley/Prudential |
MA 9/Huntington Avenue/other local streets | 0.5 | Eastbound exit/westbound entrance |
| 22A | Clarendon Street |
(Route 28) | 0.5 | Westbound entrance only, exit number not marked |
| 23 | Arlington Street | 0.5 | Westbound entrance only, exit number not marked | |
| 24A-B-C | South Station |
(I-93/US 1/Route 3) | 0.7 | This was the eastern end of the Massachusetts Turnpike and I-90 until 2003. You can access I-93 North & South from I-90 East. From I-90 West, you can only access I-93 South and use the Sumner Tunnel to access I-93 North from Logan Airport. From I-93 in both directions can access I-90 West. You can only access I-90 East from I-93 North. |
| The Mass Pike is currently CLOSED beyond this point due to the tunnel collapse. | ||||
| 25 | South Boston | 0.7 | After the Fort Point Channel Tunnel | |
| 26 | Logan Airport/Ted Williams Tunnel | 1 | toll westbound through the tunnel | |
(merges with Route 1A) | .5 | End of I-90 | ||
Service areas
There are 11 service areas on the Massachusetts Turnpike. They are:
- Lee (Eastbound and Westbound) between exits 1 and 2. This is the last service area in the state before the New York state line.
- Blandford (Eastbound and Westbound) between exits 3 and 2
- Ludlow (Eastbound and Westbound) between exits 8 and 7
- Charlton (Eastbound and Westbound) between exits 9 and 10
- Westborough (Westbound) between exits 11A and 11
- Framingham (Westbound) between exits 13 and 12
- Natick (Eastbound) between exits 13 and 14
The Mass Pike in song and popular culture
- James Taylor's 1969 song Sweet Baby James contains this mention:
- :"Now the first of December was covered with snow
- :And so was the Turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
- :Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting
- :With ten miles behind me, and ten thousand more to go."
- No matter where the song is played, some people in the audience always cheer in recognition when these lines are sung.
- Kansas City's group The Get Up Kids featured a song titled Mass Pike on their 1999 EP Red Letter Day.
External links
- [Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Website]
- [The Roads of Metro Boston - Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90)]
References
- Boston to Chicago, New York Times May 24, 1959 page XX1
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