Either the letters are too tall, or the shield is too wide. Pick your poison. The first shield is as one turns onto Merrymount Parkway in Quincy. It's a bypass of downtown, where MA 3A used to come in, turn, and come out where MA 3A now turns at MA 53. The second shield is among other wide ones around Scituate.
There are two MA 3A's. One is the original route of MA 3 (né US 3), running through towns such as Plymouth on its way toward Cape Cod. That's the 3A featured on this page. The other MA 3A is the original route of what is still US 3, beginning at I-95 where US 3 jogs onto the freeway northward, and running up to New Hampshire.


This is the only northern 3A photo I have on the site, MA 3A northbound approaching the brief MA 62 duplex.


Heading south at the Kingston-Plymouth border, the first is an old stone post from the days of turnpikes and horses - K = Kingston - and the second is demonstrating the earliest possible date on a Massachusetts town sign as well as the fact that many state highways have town-maintained portions.


NB in Kingston.


SB at MA 53 at its southern end in Kingston, and then the sign from MA 53 SB. It's interesting that if one heads straight, one goes from MA 3A to MA 53 and then (after following 53) back onto MA 3A much farther north. The old font in the second photo is rare along thhis highway.


Old street sign in Cohasset.


Rockland St. EB is cut in half. The western half turns seamlessly into George Washington Blvd., which heads towards Hull. Once upon a not-too-distant time, though, Rockland was continuous and Washington Blvd. ended in a T...


...and this sign would have made sense. Right now, it still faces Washington Blvd. traffic, but that traffic merely continues straight and curves right into Rockland St. There's no way to turn right here, but if there were, as you can see it would end in half a block anyway. Why wasn't this sign removed?


NB at Summer St. in a Hingham rotary, and EB on North St. in the same town.


I've never seen this before - a temporary drawbridge. It connects Quincy and Weymouth (photo taken heading southbound), while the new span is replacing the old drawbridge to the left.


Another old-font sign, this is Washington St. EB in Quincy, which was MA 3A before 3A was routed around downtown. MA 53 begins to the right (south), and MA 3A rejoins its old alignment straight ahead.


MA 3A SB at Quincy Shore Drive, which steals the mainline away just after it began from Morrissey Blvd. and MA 203 at I-93. Only New Hampshire regularly hyphenates its suffixed routes.

Onto MA 62
Onto MA 106
To MA 27
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