Massachusetts

[roadman65]

So no toll for use between I-90 and MA 21 then?

[Rothman]

So no toll for use between I-90 and MA 21 then?

I-91 and MA 21, yes.

Sort of misleading, though.  If your trips start outside of the free zone, you, of course, pay a toll.

[roadman65]

So no toll for use between I-90 and MA 21 then?

I-91 and MA 21, yes.

Sort of misleading, though.  If your trips start outside of the free zone, you, of course, pay a toll.

I meant I-91 lol.  So locally yes, but long distance no.

Sort of like the Schenectady area in New York. Free from I-88 to I-890, but tolled from I-88 to anywhere else between Harriman and Williamsville.

[kramie13]

Just noticed on the 2023 Rand McNally edition, that the Mass Pike is shown as being a free freeway (in purple) instead of being tolled ( in green) through Springfield.

There are no toll gantries between I-91 (Exit 45) and MA 21 (Exit 54).  There are also no toll gantries between I-290 (Exit 90) and MA 122 (Exit 96).

[vdeane]

It's not quite like I-88 as I understand it.  The Thruway is only toll free for traffic entering/exiting at exit 25A and traveling to/from exits 24, 25, or 26, with all other travel (through traffic, travel beyond those exits, or 24-25) paying a toll.  The MassPike's gantry tolls, however, are a fixed rate per gantry, and the bill is just an amalgamation of all the gantries on passed under, so there wouldn't be an additional toll if traveling both within that section and the tolled sections.

[jp the roadgeek]

Through Springfield (not Springfield and west)? It's accurate.

Free between I-91 and MA 21 Exits 45-54; old 4-7) and from I-290/395 to MA 122 in the Worcester area (Exits 90-96, old 10-11)

[roadman65]

But the Thruway is ( and always was) free near Buffalo from US 219 to I-290 and in parts of Rockland and Westchester from Ardsley to Spring Valley. So these parts are the same.

Yes from Harriman to Exit 25 A you pay it all and not just up to 24 in Colonie. As from Exit 17 at Newburgh to Exit 11 in Nyack you pay from 17 to 14A only and not all the way to 11.

[pderocco]

Through Springfield (not Springfield and west)? It's accurate.

Free between I-91 and MA 21 Exits 45-54; old 4-7) and from I-290/395 to MA 122 in the Worcester area (Exits 90-96, old 10-11)

So does this mean the Pike is experimenting with certain local toll elimination, or they just haven't budgeted for enough gantries yet?

[Ted$8roadFan]

Through Springfield (not Springfield and west)? It's accurate.

Free between I-91 and MA 21 Exits 45-54; old 4-7) and from I-290/395 to MA 122 in the Worcester area (Exits 90-96, old 10-11)

So does this mean the Pike is experimenting with certain local toll elimination, or they just haven't budgeted for enough gantries yet?

Not sure what MassDOT is up to. Since toll plazas were eliminated in 2016, they've had plenty of time to add gantries to places where they're lacking. And given the cost of highway maintenance, I doubt that toll elimination is anywhere in the offing. 

[Rothman]

Through Springfield (not Springfield and west)? It's accurate.

Free between I-91 and MA 21 Exits 45-54; old 4-7) and from I-290/395 to MA 122 in the Worcester area (Exits 90-96, old 10-11)

So does this mean the Pike is experimenting with certain local toll elimination, or they just haven't budgeted for enough gantries yet?

Remember when the whole western half of the Pike was free?  Pepperidge Farms remembers.

MassPike/MassDOT have been implementing free zones for one reason or another for decades.

[SidS1045]

Not sure what MassDOT is up to. Since toll plazas were eliminated in 2016, they've had plenty of time to add gantries to places where they're lacking. And given the cost of highway maintenance, I doubt that toll elimination is anywhere in the offing.

This was the design from the beginning of the toll plaza elimination project.  The object was to give drivers in the Worcester and Springfield areas another highway option to use without having pay a toll.  It was also an apology of sorts for Pike chairman William Callahan's snub of those two metro areas when the Pike was originally built.  They both had expected the Pike would be laid out closer to those cities, and they asked Callahan about it.  His response was in the Robert Moses mold ("no one tells me where to build a highway"), so he deliberately laid out the Pike to avoid the more heavily populated areas of those two cities.

[DrSmith]

Besides making the Springfield and Worcester area exits without tolls, they were added explicitly inside Route 128 where the Mass Pike only had fixed toll barriers. You could previously go between West Newton and Newton Corner without paying a toll previously. That only worked if you only went between those exits and that was it. With electronic tolling, an overhead gantry was added so that there is now a toll collected.

[dantheman]

Not sure what MassDOT is up to. Since toll plazas were eliminated in 2016, they've had plenty of time to add gantries to places where they're lacking. And given the cost of highway maintenance, I doubt that toll elimination is anywhere in the offing.

This was the design from the beginning of the toll plaza elimination project.  The object was to give drivers in the Worcester and Springfield areas another highway option to use without having pay a toll.  It was also an apology of sorts for Pike chairman William Callahan's snub of those two metro areas when the Pike was originally built.  They both had expected the Pike would be laid out closer to those cities, and they asked Callahan about it.  His response was in the Robert Moses mold ("no one tells me where to build a highway"), so he deliberately laid out the Pike to avoid the more heavily populated areas of those two cities.

I also remember hearing somewhere (local news, maybe?) that the cost of constructing and operating the gantry wouldn't be offset by the small tolls collected. The tolls are done on a roughly per-mile basis, so the gantry between something like exits 49 and 51 (old 5 & 6) would have only been a 5 or 10 cent toll for people with transponders. Evidently the cost of the gantry wasn't worth it for the low revenue, so the state decided not to install them.

(That logic isn't perfect, because exits 41-45 has a barrier for a 4-mile distance, but exits 90-94 doesn't have a barrier for the same 4-mile distance. *shrug*)

To me, it makes a lot of sense to me to keep highways toll-free in suburban/urban areas. Someone driving from the commercial strip along MA 33 in Chicopee to downtown Springfield has the choice between I-90 to I-291, or local streets either over to I-391 or straight down to Springfield. Why penalize someone for taking 90/291, and incentivize them to clog up neighborhoods and local streets that are already fairly crowded? Just my opinion.

[fwydriver405]

Not sure if this is related to any of the LEFT exit tab removals further down on I-93 in Braintree, Randolph and Canton (wind/sign loading issues?), but as of 27 July 2023, all three of the Exit 18 signs on I-93 South were replaced, removing MA Route 3 and 28 as well as "Cambridge", as well as one sign at the Sullivan / Assembly Sq split have been replaced too.

[bob7374]

Not sure if this is related to any of the LEFT exit tab removals further down on I-93 in Braintree, Randolph and Canton (wind/sign loading issues?), but as of 27 July 2023, all three of the Exit 18 signs on I-93 South were replaced, removing MA Route 3 and 28 as well as "Cambridge", as well as one sign at the Sullivan / Assembly Sq split have been replaced too.

Interesting. Perhaps this was done to increase the size of the Hazardous Materials Must Exit message. Most locals refer to the roads by name anyway, don't know if this will cause any confusion for visitors though. Makes it easier to put up those US 3 North trailblazers in the future...

[shadyjay]

Saw those modified/new signs Memorial Day weekend this year. 

[Ted$8roadFan]

Not sure if this is related to any of the LEFT exit tab removals further down on I-93 in Braintree, Randolph and Canton (wind/sign loading issues?), but as of 27 July 2023, all three of the Exit 18 signs on I-93 South were replaced, removing MA Route 3 and 28 as well as "Cambridge", as well as one sign at the Sullivan / Assembly Sq split have been replaced too.

Interesting. Perhaps this was done to increase the size of the Hazardous Materials Must Exit message. Most locals refer to the roads by name anyway, don't know if this will cause any confusion for visitors though. Makes it easier to put up those US 3 North trailblazers in the future...

MassDOT has usually been about signing for locals anyway IMO. Assuming that most visitors use GPS, and the most dominant platform (Waze) will update/be updated to include the current signs and not MA-3 or MA-28.

[MATraveler128]

I was on I-95 South in the Wakefield area last night and saw that they installed a new 1 mile advance overhead sign for Exit 58 without an exit tab. I wonder if this was put up by accident or how the contractors didn’t notice it.

[bob7374]

Not sure if this is related to any of the LEFT exit tab removals further down on I-93 in Braintree, Randolph and Canton (wind/sign loading issues?), but as of 27 July 2023, all three of the Exit 18 signs on I-93 South were replaced, removing MA Route 3 and 28 as well as "Cambridge", as well as one sign at the Sullivan / Assembly Sq split have been replaced too.

Interesting. Perhaps this was done to increase the size of the Hazardous Materials Must Exit message. Most locals refer to the roads by name anyway, don't know if this will cause any confusion for visitors though. Makes it easier to put up those US 3 North trailblazers in the future...

MassDOT has usually been about signing for locals anyway IMO. Assuming that most visitors use GPS, and the most dominant platform (Waze) will update/be updated to include the current signs and not MA-3 or MA-28.

According to Steve Timmins, a sign engineer at MassDOT posting on the BostonRoads.com FB group, the replacement of the existing signs with new shorter panels, and now centered on the sign structures, was prompted by the failure of an overhead sign on I-93 northbound in December of last year. While these signs weren't in danger of imminent failure, they had hangers of similar design to the one that fell, so they were swapped out with the smaller ones as a precautionary measure. He also said MassDOT is doing preliminary design work for rebuilding the current I-93 viaduct which would include replacing the current sign gantries, which are now over 50 years old. No word on whether supplemental route signs will be placed along I-93 for this exit.

[SectorZ]

I wonder what goes into rebuilding 93 thru Somerville. I shudder to think some of the dumb ideas from "stakeholders" that will come in.

[Rothman]

I wonder what goes into rebuilding 93 thru Somerville. I shudder to think some of the dumb ideas from "stakeholders" that will come in.

Yeah, keep the public out of publicly-funded infrastructure decision-making!

[shadyjay]

Wonder if they'll find a way to give I-93 SB a third lane from the Exit 18 lane drop to closer to the Rt 1 merge.  The fact that I-93 SB narrows to 2 lanes in that location is laughable.  If the present Exit 18 ramp was to lead to the "Inner Belt" which would have had traffic bypass the Central Artery, that would have been one thing, but funneling all traffic into 2 lanes heading into New England's largest city isn't the best.  I have seen worse, however... Bruckner to Cross Bronx drops I-95 down to 2 lanes then 1.  Better merge quick!

Then again, this is the state that still hasn't done anything about the one lane loop ramp from I-95 NB to Rt 128 NB. 

[SectorZ]

I wonder what goes into rebuilding 93 thru Somerville. I shudder to think some of the dumb ideas from "stakeholders" that will come in.

Yeah, keep the public out of publicly-funded infrastructure decision-making!

A man from the state of deleting I-81 thru a city checking in...

[kramie13]

Then again, this is the state that still hasn't done anything about the one lane loop ramp from I-95 NB to Rt 128 NB.

Who in the right mind decided that I-95, one of the major north-south corridors of the United States East Coast, would be reduced to a single lane (and a 270 degree loop) in Canton?  Even more odd, those exiting 95 onto 93 north get a 2-lane exit!  As a result, every time I drive through this area, there's a traffic jam.  Even on weekends!

Also, aren't I-95 and MA 128 one and the same between Canton and Peabody?  When you say "one lane loop ramp from 95 NB to 128 NB", you're making it sound like I-95 "ends" in Canton, when it clearly does not!

[MATraveler128]

Then again, this is the state that still hasn't done anything about the one lane loop ramp from I-95 NB to Rt 128 NB.

Who in the right mind decided that I-95, one of the major north-south corridors of the United States East Coast, would be reduced to a single lane (and a 270 degree loop) in Canton?  Even more odd, those exiting 95 onto 93 north get a 2-lane exit!  As a result, every time I drive through this area, there's a traffic jam.  Even on weekends!

Also, aren't I-95 and MA 128 one and the same between Canton and Peabody?  When you say "one lane loop ramp from 95 NB to 128 NB", you're making it sound like I-95 "ends" in Canton, when it clearly does not!

It’s like this due to the cancellation of the Southwest Expressway into Boston, so it likely would’ve been built as a cloverleaf. I thought MassDOT originally looked into replacing it with a flyover. Are there still plans to do that? NIMBYism shouldn’t be too big a problem since there aren’t numerous houses in the way.