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Wikipedia / U.S. Route 3

U.S. Route3 (US3) is a United States Numbered Highway running from Cambridge, Massachusetts, through New Hampshire, to the Canada–United States border near Third Connecticut Lake, where it connects to Quebec Route 257.

Massachusetts Route 3 connects to the southern terminus of US3 in Cambridge and continues south to Cape Cod. Though it shares a number, it has never been part of US3. Both routes, which connect end-to-end, are treated as a single state highway by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). From Cambridge to Burlington, US3 is routed on surface streets through the dense suburbs in the Greater Boston area. After a brief concurrency with Interstate 95 (I-95) and Route 128, the route follows its own freeway northwest, bypassing Lowell and entering New Hampshire at Nashua, becoming the Everett Turnpike.

In New Hampshire, current and former parts of US3 are known as the Daniel Webster Highway. From Burlington, Massachusetts, to Nashua, New Hampshire, US3 is a freeway. The segment in New Hampshire is a free portion of the Everett Turnpike, while the portion in Massachusetts is known as the Northwest Expressway. From where it leaves the Everett Turnpike in Nashua northward, US3 is generally a two-to-four lane at-grade road, though there are two super-two freeway portions in northern New Hampshire, one on the Laconia Bypass, and one where US3 and I-93 use the Franconia Notch Parkway. The route serves as a major local arterial, connecting many of the cities of the densely populated Merrimack Valley. North of the White Mountains, the route serves as one of the only north–south roads connecting the communities of the Great North Woods Region and has New Hampshire's only border crossing between the US and Canada.

Route description

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Massachusetts

Cambridge to Burlington

US3 begins in the south along Memorial Drive in Cambridge, along the Charles River, at an interchange with Massachusetts Avenue (Route 2A). The road continues as southbound Route3 toward Downtown Boston, while northbound US3 heads west, then north along the river toward Harvard University, joining with Route 2 along the way. It runs along the north bank of the Charles River, opposite Soldiers Field Road in Allston along this stretch. Passing south of Harvard Square, US3 and Route2 transition onto the Fresh Pond Parkway and join Route 16. Near Alewife station, Route2 splits off as a freeway to the west (Concord Turnpike), while US3 and Route16 stay on the Alewife Brook Parkway. Shortly thereafter, US3 splits from the parkway (which continues as Route16) and joins Route2A (Massachusetts Avenue) westbound, crossing into Arlington. In the center of town, US3 and Route2A split from Massachusetts Avenue and overlap briefly with Route 60 before continuing along Mystic Street. Route2A splits from US3 just to the north. US3 continues through parts of Winchester and Woburn without any major intersections before entering Burlington and interchanging with I-95 and Route 128 (Yankee Division Highway) at exit51A. US3 joins the freeway to connect with the Northwest Expressway, while its historic surface alignment continues as Route 3A.

Burlington to Tyngsborough (Northwest Expressway)

US3 runs along of I-95 (Route128) in a wrong-way concurrency before exiting at exit50A onto its own freeway, the Northwest Expressway.

Originally built in the 1950s, before the cancelation of the Inner Belt, the US3 freeway was to have extended into metro Boston before being truncated to I-95. Consequently, a partially completed cloverleaf interchange connects US3 to I-95. Exit numbers on the US3 freeway start at milemarker72 since Route3 and US3 are counted as one highway by MassDOT.

The freeway closely parallels Route3A, the historic alignment of US3, along its entire length from Burlington to the New Hampshire state border. It passes through Billerica and into Chelmsford, where it connects with I-495 and the Lowell Connector, a freeway spur into downtown Lowell. Continuing north, the freeway briefly enters Lowell, then passes through North Chelmsford and Tyngsborough before crossing the state line into Nashua, New Hampshire. The freeway continues north as the Everett Turnpike.

The Burlington to Tyngsborough area maintains a 501(c)(6) nonprofit representative entity known as the Middlesex 3 Coalition and its affiliate agency the Middlesex 3 TMA, which provides collaborative support to businesses and individuals within the jurisdiction to build consensus on transportation and developmental needs.

New Hampshire

US3 passes through most of the state's major cities and towns and is the only highway to extend from the Massachusetts state border in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Running for in New Hampshire, US3 is by far the longest signed highway in the state. For much of its routing, US3 closely parallels I-93, serving as a local route to the freeway.

Everett Turnpike (Nashua)

US3 crosses the state border into Nashua and immediately becomes concurrent with the Everett Turnpike, running on the freeway for along the western side of the city.

Daniel Webster Highway, local roads, and NH 28 concurrency (Nashua – Suncook)

US3 leaves the Everett Turnpike at exit7E, crosses New Hampshire Route 101A (NH101A) and turns northeast for approximately along a segment known as the Henri Burque Highway, before turning north onto Concord Street, which soon becomes known as the Daniel Webster Highway. (Some locals erroneously refer to the Everett Turnpike from exit7 through the I-293 interchange as US3 and refer to the actual US3 only as the Daniel Webster Highway or "Old Route3".)

US3 continues north through the town of Merrimack and into Bedford, where it becomes South River Road. The highway parallels I-293 until it turns east in Manchester and then crosses the Merrimack River on Queen City Avenue, just after its intersection with I-293/NH 3A and NH 114A. US3 and NH3A are signed in a wrong-way concurrency for approximately before US3 turns north onto Elm Street toward downtown Manchester. After approximately , US3 turns east onto Webster Street, then joins NH 28 to proceed in a northeasterly direction toward Hooksett, interchanging with I-93. The two routes continue as Hooksett Road, then the Daniel Webster Highway.

In Concord

In Suncook, NH28 leaves to the northeast, and US3 proceeds northwest toward Concord on Pembroke Street, becoming Manchester Street when it enters the Concord city limits. After crossing the Merrimack River and interchanging with I-93, US3 intersects NH3A (South Main Street), which terminates at its parent route. US3 traverses downtown Concord as North and South Main streets (briefly overlapping with US 202 and NH 9), then follows North State Street to Fisherville Road to Village Street in Penacook before crossing the Contoocook River into Boscawen.

Further north (Boscawen – Lincoln)

US3 travels north through Boscawen, briefly overlapping with US 4. The highway parallels the Merrimack River north into Franklin, where the highway meets NH 11. US3 joins NH11 and turns east; NH3A also resumes at this intersection, continuing north. US3 and NH11 briefly form a three-route concurrency with NH 127 in Franklin, then pass through Tilton, crossing NH 132 and passing the western end of NH 140. Continuing northeast past Lake Winnisquam, US3 and NH11 reach Laconia and turn onto the Laconia–Gilford Bypass, intersecting with NH 106, NH 107, and NH 11A. At the northern end of the bypass, US3 and NH11 split after a overlap, with the U.S. Route continuing north on Lake Street to Weirs Beach and an intersection with NH 11B. US3 continues north as the Daniel Webster Highway to Meredith at the northern end of Meredith Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee. In Meredith, US3 intersects the northern terminus of NH106, then joins NH 25 and continues north past Squam Lake into Holderness, passing the western terminuses of NH 25B and NH 113. Through Holderness, US3 and NH25 gradually turn west, then southwest, passing the southern end of NH 175 and then reaching the northern end of NH 132 in Ashland.

From Ashland to North Woodstock, US3 proceeds north, roughly paralleling I-93 in the Pemigewasset River valley. Along this stretch it passes through the towns of Plymouth (NH25 splits from US3 near I-93 in Plymouth, which also marks the true northern terminus of NH3A), West Campton (where it meets the western end of NH 49, the principal access road to Waterville Valley), Thornton, and Woodstock. In North Woodstock, US3 crosses NH 112 (known to the east as the Kancamagus Highway).

Interstate 93 concurrency through the Franconia Notch State Park (Lincoln – Franconia)

Continuing north, US3 joins with I-93 as it passes through Franconia Notch State Park, one of the more scenic drives in the White Mountains. This stretch of freeway is known as the Franconia Notch Parkway and is a rare section of Interstate Highway with only one lane in each direction.

Northernmost end (Franconia – Pittsburg)

US3 separates from I-93 at exit35, shortly north of the northern park boundary in Franconia. From there, NH 141 branches northwest and US3 heads north and east toward Twin Mountain and a junction with US 302. This portion of the road is noted for fairly frequent moose sightings, especially during sunrise and sunset when moose are particularly active.

Heading north from Twin Mountain, US3 passes through the village of Carroll, where NH 115 branches to the northeast and US3 bears to the northwest and the town of Whitefield. In the center of Whitefield, NH 142 branches to the northwest and NH 116 crosses, running roughly southwest to northeast. US3 continues north to Lancaster, where it joins US 2 in the town center, and where NH 135 branches off to the west. After US2 leaves to the west, US3 continues north, roughly paralleling the course of the Connecticut River (which also forms the border with Vermont), through Northumberland and Groveton, where NH 110 ends. North of Groveton, US3 continues to follow the river, through Stratford, North Stratford, and Columbia, until it reaches Colebrook, where it crosses NH 26 and meets the southern terminus of NH 145. Still following the Connecticut River north, US3 passes through portions of Stewartstown and Clarksville. In Stewartstown, the road turns more directly east (still following the Connecticut River, which is no longer a boundary), before resuming a northeasterly direction through Pittsburg. Its last major intersection is at the northern terminus of NH145. US3 continues north for another , eventually reaching the Pittsburg–Chartierville Border Crossing, where the road crosses into Chartierville, Quebec, and becomes Quebec Route 257.

In total, US3 runs along the Connecticut River and its source lakes for approximately . Sections of US3 in Colebrook are named after Scott E. Phillips and Leslie G. Lord, members of the New Hampshire State Police killed in the line of duty on August 19, 1997.

History

New England route

Before the establishment of the U.S. Numbered Highway System, the section of US3 and Route 3 from Orleans, Massachusetts, to Colebrook, New Hampshire, was part of the New England road marking system as New England Route 6. It was replaced in its entirety with the establishment of US3 and Route3 in 1926.

Massachusetts

US3 in Massachusetts closely follows the route of the early 19th-century Middlesex Canal and Middlesex Turnpike.

The modern Northwest Expressway was begun near Route 110 in Lowell before World War II. In the 1950s, it was extended south to Route128 (later overlapped by I-95), and, by the 1960s, it was completed north from Chelmsford to New Hampshire. By 2005, the chronically congested four-lane road, largely with antiquated ramps around Lowell, was widened to six lanes (as it had been in Nashua, New Hampshire, a few years prior) with a breakdown lane on both the left and right sides of the road, and many interchanges were modernized in what was comically known as "The Big Wide", in reference to Massachusetts' other "Big" construction project (the Big Dig). The roadbed and bridges were built to support a fourth lane in each travel direction for future expansion. The $365-million (equivalent to $ in ), widening project was completed in 2005 from Burlington to the New Hampshire border.

The final section of the expressway was planned for inner suburban towns northwest of Boston. The expressway was to supply a new route for US3, between Route128 and the canceled I-695 (Inner Belt). This was one of the expressway projects canceled in Governor Francis Sargent's 1970 moratorium on expressway construction within Route128. The latter section of the expressway was a key component of the "Master Plan Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston". The highway would have traveled through Lexington, Arlington, Medford, Somerville, and Cambridge, before linking with the Inner Belt Expressway.

The original plan called for US3 and Route 2 to link up at the Lexington–Arlington border and continue southeasterly, crossing Route16/Mystic Valley Parkway at the Arlington–Somerville border and proceeding into Cambridge toward Union Square, Somerville. A 1962 plan called for Route2 and US3 to converge at Alewife Brook Parkway with a longer stretch of new highway for US3 paralleling Lowell Street in Lexington and Summer Street in Arlington.

Exit numbers along the Northwest Expressway section in Massachusetts were to be changed to mileage based numbers under a project to start in 2016, but that project was postponed. In November 2019, the MassDOT announced it would be proceeding with the project in 2020.

Termini

According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) route log, the southern terminus of US3 is at the junction of Route 2A and Route 3 in Cambridge, which is where Route2A crosses the Charles along the Harvard Bridge (also known as the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge). This is a change from AASHTO's 1989 Route Log which placed the terminus at US 20 in Boston, where Route 2 currently meets US20 after crossing the Charles River at the Boston University Bridge. This was where US3 met US1 until that highway was rerouted in 1971.

The original northern terminus of US3 (in 1926) was at Colebrook, New Hampshire, but the highway was extended to West Stewartstown in 1928 and to Pittsburg in 1937. Colebrook was the northern terminus again from 1939 to 1940. Since 1940, the highway has run through Pittsburg to the Pittsburg–Chartierville Border Crossing.

Major intersections

Although MassDOT inventories Route3 and US3 as one continuous route, this table includes the mileage only for US3 starting from its southern terminus in Cambridge.

Special routes

US3 has one existing special route, a business route through Laconia, New Hampshire. Four other special routes may have existed in the past: an alternate and business route between Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire, and bypass routes around Concord and Nashua, New Hampshire.

Tyngsborough–Concord alternate route

Tyngsborough–Concord business route

Concord bypass route

Nashua bypass route

Laconia business loop

U.S. Route3 Business (US3 Bus.) is a signed business route running north–south through downtown Laconia, New Hampshire. It runs from US3 and NH 11 in Belmont north to US3 in Laconia, along NH 107 and NH 11A. It is a former alignment of US3, used before the Laconia–Gilford bypass was built.

See also

References