INTERSTATE 895 (MARYLAND)

'Interstate 895' ('I-895') - the 'Harbor Tunnel Thruway' - is a freeway in the U.S. state of Maryland owned and maintained by the Maryland Transportation Authority.

Contents

Route description

Interstate Highway System

History

Exit list

Future work

See also

External links

References

Route description

Starting at Interstate 95 at Exit 46, it bypasses downtown Baltimore to the southeast via the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel under the Patapsco River.
Traffic passing through the tunnel is charged a toll - $2 for automobiles. Due to the design of the interchanges, traffic using any part of the road south of the tunnel must pass through the toll plaza. This was also true north of the toll plaza - except for the short stretch north of Moravia Road - but ramps were built ca. 2000 to provide full access to Bayview Hospital at Lombard Street. The road was designed this way to ensure that it would not be congested by local traffic. On the other hand, the eight-lane Interstate 95 through the Fort McHenry Tunnel, which was opened in 1985 to relieve increasing congestion on I-895,^[3] has full local access.
The route terminates on Interstate 95 at unsigned Exit 62. A three-pronged spur - Interstate 895 Spur - splits from I-895 south of the tunnel, and provides access to Maryland Route 2 and Interstate 97.

Interstate Highway System

Only the part of I-895 north of the bridge over (and interchange with) Interstate 695 south of Baltimore is considered part of the Interstate Highway System by the Federal Highway Administration.^[4][5] The entire route is, however, signed as an Interstate.

History

Most of the road - from U.S. Route 1 (exit 1) to U.S. Route 40 (exit 13) - opened November 29, 1957, allowing traffic to bypass congestion in downtown Baltimore.^[6] With the opening of the tunnel, travel time through Baltimore was decreased from one hour to 12 minutes, as motorists could now avoid nearly 50 traffic lights on US 1 and US 40; the subsequent reduction in downtown traffic decreased congestion by nearly 30 percent. In its first year of use, the Harbor Tunnel Thruway carried 21,000 vehicles.^[7]
Short extensions have since been built on both ends to connect it to Interstate 95 - the north end as part of the JFK Memorial Highway, constructed in 1963, and the south end in 1973. (Until I-95 was built through Baltimore, the JFK Memorial Highway and the Harbor Tunnel Thruway simply connected directly to each other.)
The tunnel became increasingly congested and overcrowded as I-95 was completed throughout the rest of Maryland; due to a lack of consensus over I-95's route through Baltimore, the Harbor Tunnel Thruway found itself serving as the de facto I-95. Despite the construction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in 1977, thus completing I-695, traffic levels continued to rise. Permanent relief did not come until the Fort McHenry Tunnel was opened on November 23, 1985. Once the Fort McHenry Tunnel was opened, traffic levels plummeted, allowing the MdTA to close the tunnel in March 1987 for an ambitious two-year reconstruction project.

Exit list

Exits are numbered from south to north, in accordance with AASHTO guidelines.

County	Mile	#	Old	Destinations	Notes
Howard	0.0			Interstate 95 - Washington, DC	Southern terminus Southbound exit and northbound entrance
Baltimore	1.0	1	7	US 1 (Washington Boulevard) - Elkridge	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	3.4	3	6	Interstate 695 - Baltimore Beltway; Towson	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	4.4	4	5	MD 295 (Baltimore/Washington Parkway) - BWI Airport	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
Anne Arundel	5.8	6	4	Interstate 97 - Annapolis, Bay Bridge	Unsigned Interstate 895B Southbound exit and northbound entrance
City of Baltimore	6.7	7	3	MD 2 (Potee Street) - Brooklyn	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	7.8	8A	2	Shell Road - Curtis Bay	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	7.8	8B	1	Hanover Street - Baltimore	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
	Baltimore Harbor Tunnel toll plaza - cars $2.00
	8.3	9		Childs Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	Baltimore Harbor Tunnel
	11.0	10	1	Holabird Avenue - Dundalk	Northbound exit only
	11.7	11A	2	Boston Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	11.7	11B	3	O'Donnell Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	12.4	12	4	Lombard Street
	13.3	13	5	US 40 (Pulaski Highway), MD 151 (Erdman Avenue)	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	13.9	14		Moravia Road, US 40 (Pulaski Highway)	No northbound exit (use Exit 13)
	14.9			Interstate 95 - New York, NY	Northern terminus Northbound exit and southbound entrance

Future work

Due to the heavy congestion experienced on I-95 within and north of Baltimore, the MdTA intends to rebuild the northern junction between I-95 and I-895. At the moment, I-895 is the 'straight route' through the junction, with traffic wanting to stay on I-95 having to weave to the right and exit from itself. The MdTA intends to reconstruct the junction to make I-95 the 'straight route'; south of the junction, I-95 will be widened to eight lanes, and north of the junction, I-95 will be widened to twelve lanes as far as the northern I-95/I-695 interchange at Exit 64 (where a stack interchange will replace the existing double-crossover junction).
The reconstruction of this interchange is part of the works on Section 100 of the JFK Highway; it began in 2006 and is expected to be completed in 2011.

See also

★ Highways along the BosWash corridor

External links

★ I-895 @ MDRoads.com

★ I-895 on Kurumi.com

★ Steve Anderson's DCroads.net: Harbor Tunnel Thruway (I-895)

References

1. Maryland's Interstate System as of December 31, 2004
2. Auxiliary Routes of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System Of Interstate and Defense Highways as of October 31, 2002
3. Roads to the Future - Baltimore Harbor Crossings
4. , December 31, 2004
5.
6. Maryland Transportation Authority,
7. Harbor Tunnel Thruway (I-895)