, Orange to US 3

There are a bunch of old signs on the eastern freeway segment just west of where it runs into US 3 and MA 16, including the shield atop this page. These (Exit 57 for the first two, Exit 56 for the third) are all westbound.


What could be more beautiful, as the sun sets over Friday traffic out of Boston on the MA 2 freeway? Courtesy Matt Kleiman.


Courtesy Doug Kerr, this is where WB MA 2 meets I-95. The South and North Shore destinations are interesting.


Pretty sure this is at Sudbury Rd., south of Concord, but absolutely certain this is westbound.


The end of the western freeway segment is a bit west of this rotary; Exit 43 (MA 111) is the easternmost exit heading WB. 111 ends at this rotary multiplexed with MA 2 instead of at Exit 43, as a vestige of when 2 followed what is now MA 2A. East of here, MA 2 is a four-lane expressway around Concord that is chronically congested and needs to be a freeway, before becoming a freeway again (the "eastern segment") inside I-95.


MA 27 is Exit 42, and MA 111 WB is Exit 43. MA 111 loops through Harvard, and mysteriously goes from N-S to E-W through the town; this matches the directions the road runs, but there's no reason not to call the whole thing N-S. The other notable fact about MA 111 is that it's actually the western section of Massachusetts Avenue from Harvard eastward. Yes, this is finally the northwestern end of that venerable road, which also sees time as MA 2A and US 3 and ends south of Boston.


Button copy shields, as was MassHighway's wont, and then an older Exit 39 pull-through. We end with a full button-copy sign, one of only two on MA 2 west of I-95 (the other is on the EB page).


The northern terminus of I-190 from MA 2 WB. I-190 was once planned to extend northward into New Hampshire. That probably had as much chance of happening as I-92 (a short segment of which is now US 4 in Vermont) from I-87 to I-95 in NH.


I took this with my first digital camera, so it's tiny, but it's the only example I have of the original signage (you'll see more of a similar type below) that was on the four-lane section of MA 2, and not the Super-2 freeway.


A look westward along the Super-2. The treeline to the right leaves plenty of room for a second set of lanes, but unless the Greenfield bypass gets built out eastward to meet the existing freeway, it's unlikely this will be twinned. At least there appears to be some reconstructive work that may widen the existing freeway, but possibly only to three lanes.


And here's some of the work that's going on to widen the highway.


New imitates old; this is a very new shield, but has the same look as the much older shields in the area (see the top of this page).


Old westbound signs still left on the Super-2, including one that's already on the sidelines and waiting to be taken out of the game entirely. On the last sign, that should definitely be US 202, not MA 202, as the patchwork highway finds another route with which to multiplex.

Over to the EB lanes
Continue west on MA 2
Back east on MA 2 to US 3/MA 16
Back to MA 2 main page

(Exit 56) to MA 4
(Exit 56) to MA 225
Exit 52 to I-95
Sudbury Rd. to MA 117
Exit 42 to MA 27
Exit 40 to I-495
Exit 33 to I-190
Exit 18 to MA 2A
Exit 17 to MA 32
Exit 16 to US 202
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