TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
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41<br />
completion of the two interchanges. Mrs. McKeldin cut her ribbon near Wisconsin Avenue and<br />
the Governor cut his at Kenilworth Avenue, which was fifteen miles to the east. 71 The SRC<br />
designed metal girder bridges in both interchanges.<br />
The SRC called the highway the Capital Beltway, and it was opened in August 1964 and<br />
was immediately widened from two lanes to three lanes. Although the SRC had constructed<br />
some of the Beltway’s multi-beam bridges before there was a highway to connect to, one large<br />
bridge across the Potomac River required nonstandard design. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge<br />
between Oxon Hill, <strong>Maryland</strong> and Alexandria, Virginia was designed as a memorial to the<br />
former President. It was a steel girder and double bascule span bridge with the tender’s house at<br />
the draw span near the Virginia shoreline (Figure 16). 72<br />
Figure 16: Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, I-495 over the Potomac, looking east toward<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong> (SHA Photo Archive)<br />
The highway was an important component of <strong>Maryland</strong>’s interstate system because its<br />
completion provided connections between Washington’s suburbs and Frederick and Baltimore,<br />
and from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York. The new highway also helped to remove<br />
through traffic from downtown Washington DC. Several more highways needed to be<br />
completed by 1965 in order for the SRC’s interstate program to be finished: the Northeast<br />
Expressway (I-95) between Baltimore and the Delaware <strong>State</strong> Line, and I-70 between Baltimore<br />
and Frederick, as well as the I-70 portion from Frederick to Hancock, where the road enters<br />
Pennsylvania.<br />
Northeast Expressway/I-95/Kennedy Memorial <strong>Highway</strong><br />
The Northeast Expressway (I-95) between Baltimore and either the Pennsylvania or<br />
Delaware <strong>State</strong> Lines was a highway that the SRC had long planned to complete. MD 7, the<br />
Philadelphia Road, started in the eighteenth century as the post road between Baltimore and<br />
Philadelphia. The SRC took it over in 1908 and upgraded it through the mid-1930s when it<br />
became clear that the development ringing the road would prevent the agency from making it<br />
wider and safer. Between 1936 and 1939, the SRC relocated the road and built a four-lane<br />
highway, divided by medians, with a full width of 80 feet to support the two roads between<br />
Baltimore and the Delaware state lines and called it US 40. During World War II, local and out<br />
71 Op. cit, pp. 126-127<br />
72 The bridge was replaced by the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge between 2006 and 2008.