Abandoned Freeways

[rawr apples]

Occasionally for whatever reason, a freeway is rebuilt/rerouted sometimes leaving stubs or stretches of pavement that go unused for years. Other times the pavement is broken up and replaced by grass.

The Pennsylvania turnpike has a 10 mile long section of abandoned pavement including two tunnels. It starts in Breezewood and continues east
http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=chrome&q=breezewood,+pa&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=Vb0HStLcM4fotgO1vcWJBg&ll=39.996208,-78.233857&spn=0.012773,0.019312&t=k&z=16&iwloc=A




One of the tunnels


Has anyone actually been to it? or any other type of abandoned pavement?

Out of countless number of times i've passed through breezewood I've never known it was there.
Not until recently when the chance of me taking that drive again anytime soon is slim to none

[Chris]

How about that US 40 in Baltimore? It only runs for a couple of city blocks, depressed and all.

[rawr apples]

That's still in use though. I'm talking about totally abandoned, not used, not maintained, crumbling pavement, etc.

Or full interchanges with unused slip roads.

[yanksfan6129]

In New Jersey, we have a cloverleaf interchange on NJ 24 that was built but never put into use because it never got connected to Eisenhower Parkway.

[Bryant5493]

One example of an abandoned freeway project is Freedom Parkway/East Freedom Parkway (SR 10/42 Connector).

Cue video to 4:41 to 6:18.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi24wz7oLUQ

Another abandoned freeway is the eastern end of Arthur Langford Jr. Parkway (SR 166).

The stub is at 4:00.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iqu5riUKK4

Be well,

Bryant

[Norn-Iron]

From Northern Ireland (the home of abandoned roads) I bring you the M2...



The Ballee Road East was built to temporarily connect the current A26 to the M2 at junction 10 (pictured above). Junction 10 was constructed as a roundabout with two overbridges ready to take the completed M2. However, the motorway plan was axed in 1975, meaning that the route under the bridges have never been used (pictured below), and the Ballee Road East the main road for the past 30 years.



There is now a plan to re-route the Ballee Road East down under these redundant bridges so that it flows directly onto the M2. This change will substantially reduce congestion and is so obvious that it is amazing that it wasn't done long before now!

Another part of the M2 is this strech of tarmac that streches for a mile alongside the south-bound carriageway, this was orginally part of the 1960 motorway plans for the M2 to be extended here and another motorway M22 to coonect to.



(Images are not mine)

[Michael]

I-690 in DeWitt, NY (map)
I-690 was originally planned to be extended east to either I-90 or NY 290.

NY 5, Camillus bypass (both ends)
The western end (map) was supposed to continue as a freeway to Auburn.  The eastern end (map) was supposed to loop to the south and connect with I-81.

US 11/15/522 in Selinsgrove, PA (map)
The Selinsgrove Bypass was supposed to continue to the north.  The interchange is currently only half used, but there are plans to extend the freeway to PA 147 and I-80/180.

[deathtopumpkins]

Micheal: On I-690, I don't see any sort of abandoned ROW...
The last one's a real nice example though!

I've got one... I-189 in Burlington, VT. Quite a bit of unused pavement, including an interchange where all but 2 of the ramps are unused. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=burlington+VT&sll=37.066608,-76.306866&sspn=0.012259,0.019312&ie=UTF8&ll=44.44812,-73.210294&spn=0.010968,0.019312&t=h&z=16

[njroadhorse]

There's the Industrial Highway in Pittsburgh.  In the 60s and 70s, this was planned as an alternative to I-376 and the West End Bridge, and as a connector between Crafton and McKees Rocks.

[yanksfan6129]

An important abandoned freeway would have to be Long Island Motor Parkway. It was one of the first roads in the world to show modern freeway-like characteristics, but it eventually went by the wayside after design advances by Robert Moses and his parkways made the road obsolete. That only took about 20 or 30 years.

[ComputerGuy]

SR 520 at Lake Washington Blvd., Seattle....was going to be the R.H. Thompson Expressway, but was canceled...ghost ramp right here:



(Wikipedia credit, Allynfolksjr)

[froggie]

Micheal: On I-690, I don't see any sort of abandoned ROW...

There's no abandoned right-of-way per se, but there are four ramps that serve a NYSDOT maintenance shed (the area between I-481 and Butternut Dr) which were originally intended for the freeway extension Michael referred to (which according to earlier Syracuse planning docs, would have been a relocated NY 5, not an I-690 extension, and would've extended to Chittenango...a later 1990s proposal would've gone only to NY 290).

I've got one... I-189 in Burlington, VT. Quite a bit of unused pavement, including an interchange where all but 2 of the ramps are unused.

6-ramp partial-cloverleaf.  Three of the ramps are in use.  The other three aren't.  Been through that interchange a bit in recent years.

[Sykotyk]

Glad this was brought up as I was going to post a few myself regarding my various trips across the country:

IL-6 north of Peoria has an overpass designed for IL-6 to continue north (I assume the freeway would've continued along IL-29 to the I-180 boondoggle).

US 67 and US 63 in Missouri intersect at a massive interchange that lacks the continuation of US-67 north of the interchange (when US-67 is upgraded to expressway/freeway from Little Rock to I-55 south of St. Louis, it will be a great shortcut from I-40/I-55). But, right now, the overpasses and ramps sit idle.

Sykotyk

[WillWeaverRVA]

IL-6 north of Peoria has an overpass designed for IL-6 to continue north (I assume the freeway would've continued along IL-29 to the I-180 boondoggle).

I've seen that before, and I had been wondering what the deal was with it. Here's a Google Street View image:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.821539,-89.572821&spn=0,359.922752&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.821321,-89.572868&panoid=igj245QaypYqqR8ZAYoGhA&cbp=12,346.03,,0,-3.8

Dead end sign on the IL 6 mainline:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.822448,-89.572821&spn=0,359.922752&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.822657,-89.572763&panoid=igj245QaypYqqR8ZAYoGhA&cbp=12,319.53,,0,-2.4

And you can see what looks to be a ghost ramp in this image (there is an empty overhead gantry southbound just before this):

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.823877,-89.569559&spn=0,359.922752&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.823944,-89.569904&panoid=igj245QaypYqqR8ZAYoGhA&cbp=12,316.03,,0,-3.1

And finally, a satellite image:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.824381,-89.571619&spn=0.007031,0.019312&t=k&z=16

[PAHighways]

There's the Industrial Highway in Pittsburgh.  In the 60s and 70s, this was planned as an alternative to I-376 and the West End Bridge, and as a connector between Crafton and McKees Rocks.

It was planned as a much bigger project called the Chartiers Valley Expressway which would have basically been a loop following said valley.

[PAHighways]

The Pennsylvania turnpike has a 10 mile long section of abandoned pavement including two tunnels. It starts in Breezewood and continues east
http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=chrome&q=breezewood,+pa&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=Vb0HStLcM4fotgO1vcWJBg&ll=39.996208,-78.233857&spn=0.012773,0.019312&t=k&z=16&iwloc=A

Has anyone actually been to it? or any other type of abandoned pavement?

Out of countless number of times i've passed through breezewood I've never known it was there.
Not until recently when the chance of me taking that drive again anytime soon is slim to none

There are many stubs and unfinished sections in Pennsylvania, although the number has been dwindling in recent years with the completion of projects.

Attendees to all of the Pennsylvania Road Enthusiast Meets in 2004 saw at least one:  Woodhaven Road and Schuylkill Parkway during SEPA in May, the "Goat Path Expressway" during Harrisburg in September, and the abandoned Turnpike was the entire focus of the SWPA in October.

[TheStranger]

The never completed I-80 realignment from the 1970s involves bridges now used for the light rail line in Sacramento's Del Paso Heights neighborhood, approximately between the Roseville Road and Watt/I-80 stations.  Some of it is in use as station access road, others just sit abandoned.

[Greybear]

US 67 and US 63 in Missouri intersect at a massive interchange that lacks the continuation of US-67 north of the interchange (when US-67 is upgraded to expressway/freeway from Little Rock to I-55 south of St. Louis, it will be a great shortcut from I-40/I-55). But, right now, the overpasses and ramps sit idle.

US 67 and US 63 intersect at Hoxie, AR, not in Missouri.

[Sykotyk]

Oops. Thanks for that, had them in my head from talking about the expressways in Missouri.

Sykotyk

[Alex]

This topic has already been done.

Responding to some of the posts above:

The stub end of Illinois 6 may be used at some point. I posted a couple of photos and wrote about the freeway proposals on the blog.



The Interstate 189 stretch of abandoned freeway is part of the defunct Southern Connector (revived as the Champlain Parkway, but still very uncertain due to a superfund site). We did extensive research on it at the University of Vermont library in 2007 and created a page on Burlington here. If you have not looked it before, you will be surprised as to how many freeways and expressways were planned in 1965 for Burlington that never made it to fruition.



Adding to the links that Jeff already posted, from the same Harrisburg road meet, coverage of the Pennsylvania 23 "Goat Path Expressway".

[tchafe1978]

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=42.962594,-87.963302&spn=0.003125,0.006866&z=17

On the southern side of Milwaukee along the I-894 bypass, there is a set of abandoned ramps that were supposed to connect to the planned but never built Stadium South Freeway. The third level ramp from eastbound I-894 to northbound Stadium Freeway has been torn down, but the remaining three ramps are used by city buses to access a park and ride lot.

[vdeane]

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned I-95 in MA in either thread.

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=42.212388~-71.135166&style=h&lvl=15&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

[Stephane Dumas]

A-40 in Quebec city was planned to pass thru Ancienne-Lorette instead of using Henri-IV autoroute and Charest autoroute http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=46.812162,-71.337748&spn=0.019444,0.053859&z=15

[bugo]

There's the infamous abandoned section of the Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44) in Catoosa, OK, that still has some green guide signs on it.

[agentsteel53]

what about half-abandoned expressways?  old US-66/91/395 going up into Cajon Pass in California has only two lanes maintained.  The other two are out of service.  66 in Illinois parallel to I-55 has similar segments.

in western Oklahoma, near Erick, there is an abandoned four-lane US-66 expressway section.  I can't find it offhand on Google Satellite Images; I think it's sufficiently overgrown with vegetation as to be rendered invisible.