Rhode Island Roads - RI 1A




On the left and right sides of the southern end of the southern piece of RI 1A, just short of the CT border. Even by RIDOT standards, these borders are ridiculous. RI 1A South is facing due north here, and US 1 South to the left heads due west.


There is no RI Scenic 1. This is on the north-facing part of 1A South, just before Westerly and the photos above. Gimme an A!


North of the section of RI 1A that runs by Watch Hill (the one we've been on thus far), RI 1A runs along several sections of Old Post Road, in other words old US 1. This section by Ninigret Park (viewed southbound) was clearly one of the last to be bypassed, because it widens out to four lanes in preparation to be more of divided US 1. Now, the four-lane section ends as quickly as it begins, and you can continue by turning left onto current US 1.


Old signs on the former end of RI 2, now an exit from US 1 SB directly across from the current end of RI 2 (an exit from US 1 NB - forming a large circle with the US 1 U-turn ramps).


This can only be in one place - RI 108 in the Dillon Rotary, where RI 1A leaves US 1 to head to Narragansett.
Governor Sprague Bridge

Thanks to the power of search engines, I've discovered that this bridge and its eponymous replacement are north of Narragansett on Boston Neck Road. It originally curved into Old Boston Neck Road to the east. The old bridge has been preserved as a small park on one side, but the span itself has been taken down. Gee, RIDOT never leaves pieces of bridges around...


In the first picture, you can see how the road once went straight over the hill - if you kept walking 0 degrees straight ahead, you would end up walking straight down the current road. In the second picture, the fence's curvature gives away how Boston Neck Road once forked into the still-used Old road(from the bridge, the right fork) and the current RI 1A alignment as seen in the first photo.


Walking toward the bridge.


The Governor Sprague Bridge, 17 (probably an inventory number). These and the anchor above are porcelain.


Get a closeup of that anchor (when not faded, it was the state seal in 1920) by clicking on the picture.


Looking up at the faintly visible cut lines on the bridge. Time has weathered the marks away.


Lovely little park. Everything except the railing on the sawed-off end of the bridge is original, including the lightposts.

Former RI 138, Bridgetown Road, EB. RI 138 continued straight to the Narragansett Bay ferry until the Jamestown Bridge opened in 1940. This is the all-black variation of the RI Scenic 1A shield.


Looking across Narragansett Bay at the Newport (Claiborne Pell) Bridge, RI 138.


Looking north and south at a short realignment; I took the Newport Bridge photo from the southern stub.


NB (BGS) and SB (shields) at RI 138, with MA-style shields for all. Providence and I-95 are both reached via RI 4, which is reached via US 1 North, which is in turn reached via RI 138 West. If you continue on RI 1A, you miss the beginning of 4.


Northbound entering Wickford by crossing the eponymous cove on a very old concrete arch bridge. I have never seen a design like this, and given how old the bridge is, I never may again, and I may not even see this one for that much longer (though knowing RIDOT, it will be there even after the new one opens). The railing may also be original to the bridge, and certainly isn't modern.


A look back south, taken several years earlier.


Northbound and southbound at RI 102, not MA 102, and not TO 102 either (it is TO US 1, though). That's a minor problem compared to the abusive mutilation of the Scenic 1A shield - see the top of this page for the correct look.


The Scenic 1A shield is so bad, I would rather RIDOT have kept this US-shield error. This was the same turn as in the second photo above - no RI 102, no US 1, just simplicity, even if in error.

Onto US 1
To US 1A
To current RI 2
Onto RI 138
To I-95
To RI 4
Onto RI 102
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