Misplaced Pages

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Template:Infobox U.S. Route U.S. Route 240 is a defunct designation for a short, but once very-important, segment of highway between Frederick, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Route description

U.S. 240 began at a junction with U.S. 40 (since diverted to Interstate 70) and ran southeast to Washington, D.C., terminating at U.S. 50 near the Lincoln Memorial. The highway ran through Gaithersburg, Rockville and Bethesda as it approached the D.C. border.

It took a route very close to a northwest-southeast path as a spur of its long-distance 'parent' U.S. 40, which leads eastward (and still exists) to Baltimore.

History

U.S. 240's original route between Maryland Route 109 and Maryland Route 85 (then part of U.S. 15) was supplanted by a new freeway alignment in 1953; U.S. 240 was diverted away from its original route onto the new freeway as it was completed south to the future alignment of the Capital Beltway. In 1956, with the arrival of the Interstate Highway System, the route gained the designation Interstate 70S (now Interstate 270).

In Maryland, the whole of U.S. 240 was redesignated as Maryland Route 355 around 1970. In Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs, the route is locally named Wisconsin Avenue. Signs for U.S. 240 within Washington existed at least into the early 1970s, when the route was deleted in its entirety, leaving I-70S (now I-270) as the sole route following the original freeway.

In addition, Alternate U.S. 240 ran along Connecticut Avenue through Washington D.C. and Maryland inside the Washington Beltway

See also

• List of U.S. Routes
• Maryland Route 355

External links

• US 240 @ MDRoads.com
• End of historic U.S. Highway 240

Browse numbered routes
← MD 239	MD	→ MD 241
← US 211	DC	→ Error: Invalid type: Interstate

This article relating to the United States Numbered Highway System is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

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• U.S. Highways in Maryland
• U.S. Highways in Virginia
• U.S. Highways in the District of Columbia
• Former U.S. Highways
• U.S. Route 40
• United States Numbered Highways stubs