TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...

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highways such as Georgia and New Hampshire avenues were extensions of the Washington, DC
city streets. The roads had been extended beyond the City’s boundary, and commercial and
residential development occurred along these roads in the county where land was less
expensive. 47
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, nine private turnpikes were
chartered between Baltimore and Frederick, Reisterstown, York, Pennsylvania, Bel Air (and
Philadelphia), Havre de Grace, and Washington, DC (Bladensburg and Georgetown). Turnpike
towns like Pikesville, Towson, Lutherville, and Parkville ringed the city, but were not connected
to one another, or were inefficiently connected. Getting from one town to another required travel
through the City and back out on another road. Following the SRC’s creation in 1908, the
agency gradually took over the roads, converting them to state highways. By the late 1940s, as
the first wave of suburban development occurred north of Baltimore, travel between the towns
became increasingly difficult.
Baltimore County planners developed the route of the new beltway and Governor
McKeldin inaugurated construction by turning the first shovel of dirt in 1954. Initially,
Baltimore County planned the road as a connection to the Baltimore-Harrisburg Expressway
from Towson and Pikesville. The SRC, however, took over the project and concluded that
linking seven communities together by one highway was a practical solution to the nineteenth
century radial road problem, so the road was extended both east and west in the late 1950s. 48
The road was completed in July 1962 as a four lane, divided highway with interchanges at the
radial roads. As with other highways from this period, the Baltimore Beltway construction used
many of the standardized elements that the SRC used on other highways – most of the bridges
were metal girder or stringer/multi-beam or girder examples. 49 The SRC engineers quickly
learned that their traffic estimates were low. During the late 1940s, the engineers believed that
traffic grew at a rate of five percent a year; however, once the Baltimore Beltway was completed,
its traffic actually increased at a rate of ten percent a year. 50
47 Planners in both cities envisioned a ring of beltways within the city near the Central Business District, a middle
ring road and an outer ring road. None of the in-town beltways were built, while both I-495 and I-695 are the
middle distance beltways, and the Intercounty Connector will have an alignment that is near to the proposed outer
beltway.
48 Neal A. Brooks and Eric R. Rockel, A History of Baltimore County, Towson, MD: Friends of Towson Library,
Inc. (1979) p. 373; State Roads Commission of Maryland, Forging Ahead, an Interim Report 1960-1962, n.p.
49 The connection across the mouth of the Patapsco River, Key Bridge, a large through truss bridge, was completed
in 1977.
50 SRC, 12-Year Program, p. 4.