Maryland Roads - MD 331

MD 331



MD 331 changes direction midway through, so I have to decide between beginning in the west or the south. I choose south, and this is the first NB sign heading out of Vienna, as the sweeping right-hand curve out of town merges into the main street. The reason is that before the US 50 bypass, this was a major junction of 50 and 331. The sweeping curve favors the movement from 331 toward the water, where there was once a bridge to continue eastward (see the 731 page, linked at bottom, for more on that), and that happens to also be the original route of US 213. What's now US 50 between Easton and Vienna is slightly newer construction - certainly the bridge into Cambridge, since the rest of 50 could have been upgrades to other state highways - so 213 headed inland through Preston and Hurlock until the newer Choptank River Bridge was built.


SB in Vienna. It's rare to see the high route numbers assigned to pieces of old alignments signed with shields, let alone on street blades. I'm sure locals don't call it 731, though I'm not sure what name it does have.


Speaking of old US 213, this is NB at the southern end of Reids Grove Rd., which is now secret MD 819 and was the original 213 alignment.


MD 819 SB to its southern end.


SB through Hurlock.


Switching from NB to WB somewhere north of Preston, MD 331 heads across the Choptank River on the original US 213 bridge toward Easton. (Actually, it dates to 1932, so either it replaced an older crossing or US 213 wasn't complete until then. Also, the bridge along US 50 was built in 1935, though it didn't become part of 213 until 1940. I wonder what it was for those five years.)


Views north and south along the Choptank River.


Eastbound across the same bridge, which I've now done three times (and WB only once). (It takes a road enthusiast to cross a Maryland truss bridge 4 times when he's never had a real reason to use it once.)

MD 16 and MD 331/16

Onto MD 731
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