U.S. Route 240

Infobox U.S. Route
article_route=240
alternate_name=Washington National Pike
Wisconsin Avenue
yrcom=1926
yrdcom=1972
direction_a=South
from=
junction=
direction_b=North
to=
spur_of=40

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. U.S. 240 crossed into Washington, D.C. on Wisconsin Avenue, it turns southwest onto Massachusetts Avenue (Washington, D.C.) and then south-southwest onto Connecticut Avenue at Dupont Circle. It reached U.S. Route 50 at K Street and by 1968 extended to the area around the Lincoln Memorial . [http://www.geocities.com/rvdroz/1946dc.jpg1946 DC Map] ] "Torch & Trefoil." Fall 1968. Vol. 44, No. 1. p. 2.] 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 with its southern end at the intersection with U.S. 240 at Dupont Circle.

ee also

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

References

External links

* [http://www.mdroads.com/routes/us240.html US 240 @ MDRoads.com]
* [http://www.geocities.com/usend4049/End240/end240.htm End of historic U.S. Highway 240]

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