Massachusetts Route 18

"MA 18" redirects here. MA 18 may also refer to Massachusetts's 18th congressional district.

Route 18 marker

Route 18
Route information
Maintained by MassDOT
Length: 41.561 mi[1] (66.886 km)
Major junctions
South end: US 6 in New Bedford
  I195 in New Bedford
I495 in Middleborough
US 44 / Route 28 in Middleborough
Route 3 in Weymouth
North end: Route 53 in Weymouth
Location
Counties: Bristol, Plymouth, Norfolk
Highway system
Route 17Route 19

Massachusetts Route 18 is a north–south state highway in Southeastern Massachusetts. Beginning in the city of New Bedford, it runs as a freeway for approximately 2 miles (3.2 km), continuing as a surface street until Weymouth.

Route description

Southbound entering Bridgewater

Route 18 starts as a four-lane freeway, a continuation of John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway in downtown New Bedford, at U.S. Route 6. After the intersection with I-195, Route 18 runs via surface streets parallel to Route 140 for a while, up to a connector road with Route 140 northbound. (Before its highway route was constructed, Route 140 followed County Road from Taunton until terminating at Route 18 in Freetown near the New Bedford line.) Route 18 then continues on a generally northerly direction. The highway goes through the East Freetown section of Freetown, Lakeville (with a three-mile (5 km) concurrency with Route 105 along Assawompset Pond), Middleborough, where the highway meets U.S. Route 44 and Route 28 at the Middleboro rotary just north of Interstate 495, beginning a six-mile (10 km) concurrency with Route 28 until the center of Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Whitman, Abington, and Weymouth, ending at Route 53.

Route History

The current routing of Route 18 was established in 1933 taking over what was the routing of Route 102 from Weymouth to Route 28 in Bridgewater (the remainder to Route 140 in Taunton became part of Route 104) running concurrently with Route 28 from Bridgewater to Middleboro, taking a new highway constructed in 1932 from Middleboro to Lakeville, running concurrently with Route 105 for a short distance before turning southwest and taking a route to end at Route 140 in Freetown. Around 1968 Route 18 arrived at its current terminus when extended further south along a highway parallel to Route 140 to end at U.S. 6. When first established in 1927, Route 18 ran on a different alignment from Route 123 in Rockland north to Route 3A in Hingham using Hingham Street in Rockland, Pond Street in Norwell and Main, Short, Leavitt and East Streets in Hingham. In 1931 the Hingham portion became part of the circumferential Route 128 and the remaining parts in Norwell and Rockland had the Route 18 designation removed in 1932.[2]

Highway improvements

A major fault of Route 18 north of Bridgewater is its intersection patterns. At all lights north of Bridgewater center, the road widens to four lanes temporarily, before and after the intersection. While this helps alleviate backups at the lights and assists vehicles turning left off of the route, it creates bottlenecks after the intersection, where the two lanes re-merge into one.[3] To help this, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's Highway Division will be widening the section of Route 18 from Highland Place in Weymouth to Route 139 in Abington from two to four lanes. The $26 million project was originally planned to begin in 2013, but had yet to break ground as of July 2014.

Major intersections

CountyLocationmi[1]kmDestinationsNotes
BristolNew Bedford0.0000.000Elm Street / JFK Memorial Highway Downtown New BedfordContinuation beyond US 6
0.0310.050 US 6 Dartmouth, FairhavenNo southbound entrance; No northbound access to US 6 west
0.2560.412Hillman StreetNorthbound entrance only
0.4180.673Purchase StreetSouthbound exit only
0.8811.418Weld StreetSouthbound exit only
1.2411.997 I195 Fall River, Cape CodNorthbound exit and southbound entrance; exit 15 on I-195
1.3752.213Coggeshall StreetNorthern terminus of freeway section
4.8117.743 Route 140 north Taunton, BostonExit 6 on Route 140; access via Ashley Boulevard
6.59910.620 Braley Road to Route 140
East Freetown9.42715.171 Mason Road to Route 140 East Freetown
PlymouthLakeville13.50821.739 Route 105 south RochesterSouthern terminus of concurrency with Route 105
16.19326.060 Route 105 north Middleboro, PlymouthNorthern terminus of concurrency with Route 105
18.09729.124 Route 79 Middleboro, Assonet, Fall River
Middleborough19.715–
19.944
31.728–
32.097
I495 to Route 24 Wareham, Cape Cod, Marlboro, BostonExit 5 on I-495
20.062–
20.255
32.287–
32.597
US 44 / Route 28 south to I495 Middleboro, Plymouth, Taunton, MarlboroRotary; southern terminus of concurrency with Route 28
Bridgewater26.172–
26.308
42.120–
42.339
Route 28 north / Route 104 Taunton, Kingston, West Bridgewater, BrocktonRotary; northern terminus of concurrency with Route 28
East Bridgewater28.09445.213 Route 106 west West BridgewaterSouthern terminus of concurrency with Route 106
28.19745.379 Route 106 eastNorthern terminus of concurrency with Route 106
Whitman32.06651.605 Route 14 Brockton, HansonSite of the Toll House Inn (birthplace of the chocolate chip cookie) northwest of here
32.79852.783 Route 27 Brockton, Kingston
Abington34.54455.593 Route 123 Brockton, Hanover
36.16858.207 Route 139 Holbrook, Rockland
NorfolkWeymouth37.08559.683 Route 58 south RocklandNorthern terminus of Route 58
40.684–
40.940
65.475–
65.887
Route 3 Boston, Cape CodExit 16 on Route 3
41.56166.886 Route 53 Braintree, Quincy, Hanover
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

References

Route map: Bing / Google

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Massachusetts Route 18.
  1. 1 2 MassDOT Planning Division. "Massachusetts Route Log Application". Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  2. Information from Massachusetts Road Maps of 1930, 1932, 1933 and 1968 downloaded from MassDOT's Historic Maps Gallery at http://massdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/PublicGallery/index.html?appid=29085e10d60743cf9a37d62b5fe8b83d, downloaded 4/29/2016.
  3. Christian Schiavone (25 April 2013). "Weymouth residents object to Route 18 widening plan". Gatehouse Media, Inc. Retrieved 21 March 2015.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.