I-68 and I-68/US 40


MD - More than Deer!

All photos taken EB.


A graceful welcome to Maryland.


At the top of the ramp to US 219, and the end of the 219/68 duplex. ALT US 40 is the old road that has been supplanted by I-68; I don't see why US 40 doesn't just stay on the old highway.


MD 495 duplicates the number of I-495, the Beltway around Washington, DC. Further muddling the situation is the lack of an exit tab.


At least twenty of the tenth mileposts on I-68 have inverted colors, with numbered cranes sitting seemingly randomly atop them. Not sure what they signify, maybe something to do with the Potomac watershed and the wildlife attracted to it (ah, Maryland Wildlife).


Crossed both this and the Mason-Dixon twice during the same weekend.


Old US 40 in Cumberland, built as a freeway well before the rest of I-68, and thus considerably substandard. Before this was built through hills on either side of Cumberland and right through the center of the city, US 40 went north through the communities of La Vale, Narrows Park, and Locust Grove, then curved southeast into the city. The upgrade on the east side of town was a direct overlay of the original highway, and thus is much closer to Interstate standards. The only way to fix I-68 is a complete bypass of the Cumberland area, and that isn't happening.


The famous, expensive, and necessary Sideling Hill cut, seen from the top of the pedestrian overpass from the museum in the last two photos (and thus technically looking west). Without this feat, US 40 would have hairpin curves, there would be no I-68, and trucks would have to pay considerable money (and potentially go dozens of miles out of their way) to follow I-70 along the Pennsylvania Turnpike or I-64 along the West Virginia Turnpike.


Why does the first sign need to be white? Why does the second sign need such a wide I-shield? (The ABC is fine, as US 522 wyes into I-70 just east of the end of I-68.) I'm sure glad the third sign is button copy.

Into WV on I-68
To current US 40
North on US 219 into PA
Exit 82 to I-70
Exit 82 to US 522
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