Massachusetts Roads - US 3



Once, all of Route 3 was New England Route 3. Then, Massachusetts decided it wanted US 3 to end mysteriously in the middle of Memorial Drive at Mass. Ave. (MA 2A) and become MA 3. I have more on the MA 3 page (link at bottom), but US 3 may as well end at I-95 where the freeway ends. Incidentally, that freeway was supposed to meet an MA 2 freeway, which would have gone to the proposed Inner Belt (I-695) where US 3 would most likely have ended. All of those highways died at about the same time as the Southwest Expressway (I-95).

MA 2 and US 3: Memorial Drive, Fresh Pond Parkway
MA 2/US 3/MA 16

To MA 3


NB with MA 2A WB, Arlington, courtesy Matt Kleiman.


MA 3 ended awhile ago. These are in Lexington (or just northeast of it), the first on US 3 NB and the second on Russell St. WB (same intersection), shortly before US 3 becomes MA 3A and the US route jogs over to the Northwest Freeway. Whoever made these LGS's probably made the assembly slightly to the north:

- which is old and cool, but wrong.


Courtesy Doug Kerr, on NB US 3, this must have come from a BGS or at least was intended for one, or else the contractor went through much greater trouble than necessary to produce cutouts. You can see the six-laning of the US 3 Northwest Freeway in progress here as of 2003, so as to match NH's Everett Turnpike. My version, shield only, at top.


In 2005 and even 2013, they're still there on both sides.


Compare this to the one on I-93 - this one has button-copy and slightly more distance to Concord, but it's eerie how the same destinations are used on different routes, especially because Nashua N.H. is much closer in this case.


All this construction signage just might be left over from the recent widening of US 3. I love that cool diagrammatic in the background of the last photo. MA 110 is the surface street into Lowell, paralleling the Connector. This is a rare five-way interchange with all movements possible. The Lowell Connector was once Business Spur 495, but is now unnumbered.

MA 2 and US 3: Memorial Drive, Fresh Pond Parkway
MA 2/US 3/MA 16


To MA 3
Onto I-95/MA 128
Exit 30 to I-495
Exit 30 to the Lowell Connector
Exit 31 to MA 110
See more of Middlesex County
Northwest Expressway (US 3) on Steve Anderson's bostonroads.com
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