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Interstate 95

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Template:Infobox Interstate Interstate 95 (abbreviated I-95) is an Interstate highway that runs 1,927 miles (3,101 kilometers) north-south along the east coast of the United States. The southern terminus is in the city of Miami, Florida (Map), at a junction with U.S. Route 1; the northern terminus is at the Canadian border at Houlton, Maine (Map), where it becomes New Brunswick Route 95. The approximated center is located in Rocky Mount, NC, where it intersects with U.S. 64.

Interstate 95 is one of the best-known, most important, and most heavily traveled highways in the Interstate Highway System. It serves and connects the major cities along the Northeast corridor, and it is the major north-south highway along the east coast. It is the longest north-south Interstate highway (five east-west routes are longer), and it passes through more states (15) than any other Interstate.

I-95 is the only long-distance Interstate in the original plans that is not yet completed. Due to the cancellation of the Somerset Freeway in New Jersey, the section in Pennsylvania and Mercer County, NJ is not contiguous with the main section in New Jersey. Once the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project in Bristol Township, PA is completed around 2010 (junction with Interstate 276), I-95 will finally be completed and the stray section of I-95 in Bucks County, PA and Mercer County, NJ connecting to northernmost end of I-295 in Lawrence Township, NJ (where the direction changes from north to south) will be re-numbered as an extension of I-195. I-95 north in Bucks County, PA and Mercer County, NJ will combine with I-295 south in Mercer County, NJ (up to the current I-295 / US 1 interchange) to become part of I-195 east (and vice versa). (There has been talk about extending 195 south of US 1 to 295's Exit 60 (Rt. 29/I-195). However, it is not definite that this will happen yet.) Changing the direction to east/west will eliminate the confusion of the road currently changing directions from north/south in Lawrence Township, NJ.


Interstate 95 bridge over Lake Marion, Santee, SC; old bridge is fishing pier

Length and major cities

Lengths
  mi km
FL 382.17 615.04
GA 112.03 180.29
SC 198.76 319.87
NC 181.71 292.43
VA 178.73 287.64
DC 0.11 0.18
MD 109.05 175.50
DE 23.43 37.71
PA 51.08 82.21
NJ 77.96 (main route)
8.77 (Trenton area)
11.03 (west spur)
97.76 (total) 		125.46
14.11
17.75
157.33
NY 23.50 37.82
CT 111.57 179.55
RI 43.3 69.7
MA 91.95 147.98
NH 16.20 26.08
ME 305 491

Bolded cities are officially-designated control cities for signs.

Intersections with other interstates

From south to north:

Spur routes

Auxiliary routes of Interstate 95
I=95 shield
  • Former
  • Future
  • Unbuilt
  • Unsigned

Tolls

Portions of the highway have or used to have tolls:

Notes

  • The highway's spurs have set three records. I-95 has the most "child" highways of any interstate. There are soon to be eight separate I-295s, making this designation used for the most highways. Also, six I-695s were planned, but were subsequently postponed or never built, setting another record.
  • I-95 generally parallels U.S. Route 1 for its entire route, although in some places they are over 100 miles apart. For example, US 1 passes through Raleigh, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia, three cities that are not served by I-95. Also, the southern portion of I-95 (Miami, FL to Trenton, NJ) terminates at US 1 at each end; however, the planned re-routing of I-95 onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike to interchange 6 on the New Jersey Turnpike will eliminate the US 1 terminus in the Trenton area. Brief discussions were made to make I-95 complete by building the linking portion on the current site of, above, or next US 1 for this 20 mile stretch as to connect with the remainder of I-95 to make the road continuous.
  • The highway was known as a drug route and was nicknamed Cocaine Alley.
  • East-West spur on FL 528 travels between Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida; location of Kennedy Space Center.
  • There are two unsigned spur routes from the Washington area. I-695 is an unsigned route that connects I-395 and I-295; and I-595 to Annapolis is better known as US 50/301. (There is another I-695 not too far to the north, a full beltway around Baltimore.)
  • Originally, I-95 was supposed to go through Washington, D.C. instead of around it. The section through the city was re-designated as I-395; it does not connect with I-95 at its northern end, but does at its southern end. The Baltimore-Washington Parkway is not an interstate, but if it were, it would have been I-295; the section not controlled by the National Park Service is designated MD 295, while the portion of the Anacostia Freeway in Washington not designated I-295 is DC 295 – the District's only "state highway". The Capital Beltway article has more about this stretch of highway.
  • A substantial portion of the Capital Beltway in Virginia and Maryland is also Interstate 95; additionally, there is a very small portion at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge where the road actually crosses through an edge of the District of Columbia in the Potomac River. (This small area is within the boundaries surveyed in straight lines when the District was carved out of Virginia and Maryland upon its formation in 1790).
  • The light towers along I-95 between the I-495 Capital Beltway and the Baltimore city line contain either mercury vapor or metal halide streetlights, both of which cast a soft white light. Once I-95 enters Baltimore, the light towers contain high-pressure sodium lights, which are bright orange. North of Baltimore, there are mercury vapor/metal halide towers at four more interchanges. Light towers are very common on Interstate highways, especially in urban areas, and most of them contain sodium lighting. They usually carry three or four lights, but some light towers can carry as many as 16.
  • Near the Baltimore suburb of Rosedale, Maryland, there is an interchange at I-695 where both highways cross over themselves so that drivers are on the "wrong" side of the road. The interchange has four left-turn ramps directly connecting the two highways. The travel lanes on I-95 and I-695 return to their proper positions after passing through the interchange.
  • At eight lanes wide, the Fort McHenry Tunnel is among the widest underwater tunnels in the world. There are four tubes, each of them carrying two lanes.
  • In Baltimore, two interstate highways (I-70 and I-83) were planned to intersect with I-95, but they were both cancelled, along with I-170 (which is now part of US 40). I-70 ends unceremoniously at a Park & Ride lot just before the Baltimore city line, and I-83 ends in the downtown district. Ramp stubs remain from both interchanges. Aerial photos of ghost ramps: To I-70: , To I-83: ,
  • Originally, a bridge, possibly a suspension bridge, was planned to carry I-95 over Baltimore Harbor, and a tunnel was planned for I-695. Opposition prevented the I-95 bridge from being built (because it would've blocked the view of the Baltimore skyline and Fort McHenry), and it switched positions with the I-695 tunnel, which had also been rejected. The two crossings became the Key Bridge for I-695, and the Fort McHenry Tunnel for I-95.
  • The I-895 Harbor Tunnel Thruway in Baltimore intersects with I-95 at three different points. At one of those crossings (where the two Baltimore tunnels are located), there are no ramps between the Thruway and the I-95 freeway.
  • I-395, a skyway into downtown Baltimore, was once considered the shortest three-digit Interstate route in the country.
  • Also, an I-895 was planned to connect I-95 and I-295 south of Trenton, with the bridge over the Delaware River being a replacement of the Burlington-Bristol Bridge, making a complete loop of Trenton. This was never built, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Extension would be the interstate in the area if a connection between it and I-295 were ever built.
  • I-895 around Providence was also planned, but it was never built.
  • The Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia was supposed to be designated I-895. However, due to circumstances surrounding its construction (namely, it opened as a toll road while having received federal funds), it was disqualified as an Interstate.
  • I-95 in Massachusetts loops around Boston along Route 128. I-95 was supposed to go through Boston instead of around it but, due to pressure from local residents, all proposed interstate highways within 128 were cancelled in 1972 by Governor Francis Sargent, the exception being the completion of Interstate 93 to Boston. The only section of I-95 completed within the 128 beltway by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation was part of the highway north of Boston to Saugus, called the Northeast Expressway which is now part of U.S. Route 1. Between 1972 and 1974, plans were to extend I-95 along a northly extension of the Northeast Expressway to Route 128 in Danvers. During this time, I-95 was officially routed along Route 128 from Canton to Braintree and along Route 3 from Braintree to intersection with the Northeast Expressway in Boston. When the extension was cancelled in 1974, I-95's route shifted to where it is today (along Route 128), and I-93 was extended to meet I-95 in Canton. Plans for the abandoned roadways can still be seen going from the end of the Northeast Expressway to the Saugus River in Saugus, Massachusetts. Furthermore, on the south end in Canton, there is an abandoned stretch north of the trumpet interchange at I-95 and I-93. From aerial photographs, the planned configuration of the junctions is apparent.
File:NB2-I95.jpg
Sign on NB 2 for NB 95
  • Across the Canadian border near Houlton, Maine, I-95 continues in Canada as New Brunswick Highway 95. This is the one of two places where an Interstate and its Canadian extension have the same route number; the other is at the north end of Interstate 29. (However, each of these Canadian extensions runs for less than ten miles before connecting to another highway.)
  • I-95 was recently rerouted in Maine. Before 2004, the Maine Turnpike between the Falmouth Spur (near Portland, Maine) and Gardiner, Maine was signed as I-495, and I-95 followed a free expressway parallel to the east. Now, the entire Maine Turnpike is signed as I-95, the old I-95 free highway between the Falmouth Spur and Gardiner has been resigned as an extension of I-295 from Portland, and I-495 now only exists as the secret designation for the short Falmouth Spur. The official reason for this change was "to avoid confusion." However, some point out that the new signage might be a ploy to encourage through traffic to use the toll Maine Turnpike instead of the slightly shorter parallel free expressway, and that busy traffic heading for much of the Maine coast must now change from I-95 to I-295 before exiting on U.S. Route 1.
  • A small, disused cemetery lies on the road shoulder near Kennebunk, Maine. Although it is less than five feet from the roadside, crews have taken care to preserve it, even erecting a fence around the tombstones so that snowplows do not cause any damage.

Disasters

On February 18, 1981, in Stafford County, Virginia, eleven people died when a commuter bus lost control near Quantico and fell into Chopawamsic Creek.

In January 1983, a truck with a brake failure slammed into a line of cars waiting to pay a toll on I-95 in Stratford, Connecticut. Seven people were killed. This accident is what partially led to the removal of toll barriers throughout Connecticut, which was completed six years after.

On the morning of June 28, 1983, a 100 ft (30 meter) section of the Mianus River Bridge in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut collapsed, plunging northbound I-95 traffic into the river below, killing three. The collapse was blamed on the failure of the steel pins to hold the horizontal beams together and inadequate inspection prior to the collapse. Northbound traffic was diverted on this section of I-95 for 25 days. Southbound traffic was unaffected.

In 1993, an illegal tire dump in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia caught fire, destroying 22 spans of the Port Richmond viaduct. Although the fire occurred during the overnight hours, it caused major traffic delays within Philadelphia itself, along with paralleling I-295 and the New Jersey Turnpike in New Jersey. The entire span and its support columns were replaced in an emergency repair project that took nearly 3 months to complete. The property owners were later convicted in both federal and state court.

In May 1996, a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline from a Texaco refinery in Delaware City, Delaware, crashed through the Jersey barrier in Chester, Pennsylvania, crossed into the oncoming southbound lanes and crashed into a small pickup truck, killing both the tractor-trailer and pickup truck drivers and causing a massive fire that destroyed the southbound span (luckily, the supports were undamaged). The span was replaced and reopened by the 4th of July holiday by, coincidentally, the same contractors that rebuilt the Port Richmond viaduct in 1993.

On February 22, 2001, 116 vehicles were involved in a late-morning series of accidents on Interstate 95 near Woodbridge, Virginia, about 30 miles south of Washington. One person died, and dozens were injured. With traffic at a standstill, many sought shelter in a nearby elementary school.

One January 19, 2002, an overtall tractor-trailer truck struck the underpass of U.S. Route 58 at Exit 11 of I-95 in Emporia, Virginia. The crash almost completely demolished the bridge, reducing it to only one passable lane (westbound). Emergency repairs to shore the bridge and open a second lane for eastbound traffic took weeks. Full repairs took many months.

On January 13, 2004, a tanker truck fell onto the northbound lanes of I-95 as it was entering the southbound side from the Harbor Tunnel Thruway in Howard County, Maryland, just south of Baltimore. The truck driver was killed, along with the occupants in additional vehicles traveling north on I-95 (including a pickup truck). The northbound lanes of I-95 were closed to traffic overnight, as cleanup crews cleared the highway of debris from the crash.

On March 26, 2004, a bridge on I-95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut was partly melted by the explosion of a tanker truck carrying over 11,900 gallons (45,000 liters) of fuel oil. Repairs were estimated to take at least two weeks, but the highway was opened to northbound traffic in only a few days. Southbound traffic resumed about a week later.

On September 3, 2004, I-95 was backed up from West Palm Beach, Florida, to the Florida-Georgia Border because of the evacuations from Hurricane Frances. People who got on I-95 from Boca Raton to Sebastian, Florida, were subject to wait for more than 24 hours before they got out of Florida.

On October 16, 2004, a sudden hail storm just north of Baltimore caused a string of 17 accidents, involving 92 vehicles, in an 11-mile stretch of I-95. Both northbound and southbound lanes were closed down. The northbound lanes were reopened seven hours later, and the southbound lanes required a further 12 hours to clean.

On the morning of July 25, 2005, a Philadelphia-bound Greyhound bus crashed and overturned on the rain-soaked lanes of northbound I-95 in Baltimore, Maryland, near the junction with US 40 in the eastern part of the city, before the junction with I-895. Fourteen people were seriously injured, although nobody died. Slick roads caused by an early-morning thunderstorm was blamed for the crash. The highway was closed in the northbound direction for hours.

On the morning of November 23, 2005, a tanker truck exploded on southbound I-95 just north of the Capital Beltway (I-495) near Beltsville, Maryland. The highway was damaged and was closed for several hours on the day before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel days of the year.

See also

External links

References

  1. FDOT GIS data
  2. Georgia Department of Transportation, Office of Transportation Data (2003). "Interstate Mileage Report (438 Report)" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) (PDF)
  3. ^ Federal Highway Administration Route Log and Finder List, Main Routes of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System Of Interstate and Defense Highways as of October 31, 2002
  4. Maryland State Highway Administration, December 31, 2004 Highway Location Reference
  5. New Jersey Department of Transportation, 2005 Straight Line Diagrams
  6. Connecticut State Numbered Routes and Roads as of December 31, 2004 (PDF)
  7. RIGIS data - "Roads - Primary" and "Roads - State"
  8. GRANIT GIS data - NH Public Roads
  9. Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project
  10. Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project
Blank Interstate shield Primary Interstate Highways
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Routes in italics are no longer a part of the system. Major Interstates are highlighted.
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