Interstate 95

of highway were not completed until 1961. In 1956, the Thruway was designated as part of I-95. Tolls were originally levied in both directions, but were removed from the southbound direction in the late 1980s during reconstruction of the NET. Currently, tolls are levied northbound only.

New England

The Connecticut Turnpike was completed in 1958 and designated as part of I-95. I-95 follows the turnpike through Connecticut from the New York state line to its intersection with I-395 in Waterford, then continues eastward to the Rhode Island state line. Tolls were removed from the turnpike in 1985 after a notorious fatal car accident at a toll plaza in 1983. In January 2007, the Connecticut Department of Transportation announced a $4-million study into the feasibility of reinstating tolls on the Connecticut Turnpike. [ [http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct-xgr--highwaytolls0127jan27,0,2915916.story?coll=ny-region-apconnecticut
] ]

The New Hampshire Turnpike is designated as I-95 in New Hampshire. All of I-95 except approximately the northernmost one mile (1.6 km) in New Hampshire is designated the Blue Star Turnpike, part of the New Hampshire Turnpike System. The Turnpike System diverges from I-95 in Portsmouth at the interchange with U.S. Route 4. Tolls are collected once at a mainline plaza in Hampton.

The Maine Turnpike was built in two sections, completed in 1947 and 1955. [http://www.maineturnpike.com/html/about/history.html Maine Turnpike Authority] Beginning in 2004, the entirety of the Maine Turnpike was designated as Interstate 95. The Turnpike extends from the New Hampshire line north convert|102|mi|km to just south of Augusta. The Maine Turnpike uses entrance tolls at exits south of including Gray, and uses barrier toll plazas north of Gray. This allows travel on the southern section without having main line tolls causing major backups and the northern section saves money by requiring fewer toll collection employees. As a sidenote, the shifting of I-95 onto the Maine Turnpike also ushered in a change from sequentially-numbered exits to a mile-based system, making it the only such area in New England on I-95.

Notable disasters

On June 28, 1983, a section of the Mianus River Bridge in Cos Cob, Connecticut collapsed, killing three people and seriously injuring three. A section of the northbound lanes was closed for six months.

In March 1996, 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 the 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 1998, 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). [cite web
url=http://www.pahighways.com/interstates/I95.html
title=Pennsylvania Highways: Interstate 95
last=Kitsko
first=Jeffrey J.
date=April 05, 2008
accessdate=2008-10-05] The span was replaced and reopened by the 4th of July 1998 holiday by, coincidentally, the same contractors that rebuilt the Port Richmond viaduct in March 1996.Fact|date=October 2008

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 using a temporary bridge about a week later.

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.

On Friday 2 November 2007, the beginning of a weekend, another tanker truck carrying over 8,500 gallons of diesel traveling northbound lost control and ended up on the southbound half of the interstate in East Lyme, Connecticut. The location of the accident, on a 2-lane stretch of I-95 known as "crash alley", is less than a mile from the interchange with Interstate 395. Three people were killed; both interstates and U.S. Route 1 were closed for almost 12 hours to clean up the thousands of gallons of spilled fuel and make repairs to the roadway. [ [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_re_us/interstate_crash_3 Fatal crash shuts down I-95 in Connecticut. (Yahoo News; November 2, 2007)] ]

Future

Between Richmond, Virginia and New Jersey are a few large projects that are helping to ease traffic along the corridor. The reconstruction of the Springfield Interchange in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, helped to ease traffic at the intersection of Interstate 95, Interstate 495, and Interstate 395, and surrounding interchanges. The Springfield Interchange is one of the busiest highway junctions on the East Coast, serving between 400,000 and 500,000 vehicles per day. With the exception of HOT lanes on the Capital Beltway (I-495/95), this project was completed in July 2007.cite web|publisher=Interstate Guide|url=http://www.interstate-guide.com/i-095.html|title=Interstate 95 @ Interstate-Guide.com|accessdate=2008-02-15] cite web
url=http://www.springfieldinterchange.com/
title=Springfield Interchange Improvement Project: Home
publisher=Virginia Department of Transportation]

A few miles to the east is another major project: the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement. The bridge carries Interstates 95 and 495 over the Potomac River. The former Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which has since been demolished, was a six-lane bridge that was severely over-capacity. The new bridge will be two bridges comprising a total of twelve lanes; six in each direction. This project is half-complete. The I-95/495 North bridge is complete, and is currently carrying traffic for both directions while the I-95/495 South bridge is constructed.

Farther north in Pennsylvania, a project is underway at the intersection of I-95 and I-276. The Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project will construct an interchange between Interstate 95, Interstate 276, and once completed, Interstate 195, [ [http://www.paturnpikei95.com/pdf/DACMeeting050914.pdf Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission I-95/I-276 Interchange Project Meeting Design Management Summary - DRAFT: Design Advisory Committee Meeting #2] ] as I-95 will no longer go through Trenton, New Jersey. This project will result in another toll being added to the route, that of the Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge over the Delaware River. [ [http://www.paturnpikei95.com/ Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project] ] The toll, much like the other crossings of the river, will be for traffic leaving New Jersey only - that's I-95 southbound. More critically, completion of this project will close the remaining gap in the route.

In 2006, the Virginia General Assembly passed SJ184, a resolution calling for an interstate compact to build a toll highway between Dover, Delaware and Charleston, South Carolina as an alternative to I-95 that would allow long-distance traffic to avoid the DC Metropolitan area [ [http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=061&typ=bil&val=sj184 SJ 184 Interstate Route 95; construction and operation of controlled access highway as alternative thereto.] ] .

Federal legislation has identified I-95 through Connecticut as High Priority Corridor 65. A long-term multibillion dollar program to upgrade the entire length of I-95 through Connecticut has been underway since the mid-1990s and is expected to continue through at least 2020. Several miles of the Connecticut Turnpike through Bridgeport were recently widened and brought up to Interstate standards. Work has shifted to reconstructing and widening convert|12|mi|km of I-95 through New Haven, which includes replacing the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge. Environmental studies for reconstructing and widening 60 miles (95 km) of I-95 from New Haven to the Rhode Island state line are also progressing.

Major intersections

*Interstate 4 in Daytona Beach, Florida [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Daytona+Beach,+Florida&ll=29.127572,-81.053009&spn=0.270095,0.360077&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 10 in Jacksonville, Florida [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Jacksonville,+Florida.&ll=30.315543,-81.682663&spn=0.066729,0.090019&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 16 in Savannah, Georgia [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Savannah,+Georgia&ll=32.106134,-81.229477&spn=0.130955,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 26 near Harleyville, South Carolina [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Harleyville,+South+Carolina&ll=33.288064,-80.473480&spn=0.516927,0.720154&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 20 in Florence, South Carolina [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Florence,+SC&ll=34.189086,-79.836273&spn=0.127882,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 40 in Benson, North Carolina [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Benson,+NC&ll=35.371695,-78.511391&spn=0.126062,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 85 in Petersburg, Virginia [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Petersburg,+Virginia&ll=37.241262,-77.449493&spn=0.492298,0.720154&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 64 for 4 miles (6.4 km) in Richmond, Virginia [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Richmond,+Virginia&ll=37.554104,-77.446060&spn=0.122562,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 76 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Philadelphia,+Pennsylvania&ll=39.889719,-75.159531&spn=0.118620,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 78 in Newark, New Jersey [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Newark,+NJ&ll=40.707450,-74.160976&spn=0.058597,0.090019&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 80 in Teaneck, New Jersey [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Teaneck,+NJ&ll=40.851216,-73.999443&spn=0.116940,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 87 in New York City, New York [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+York,+NY&ll=40.847710,-73.924770&spn=0.058473,0.090019&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 91 in New Haven, Connecticut [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+Haven,+CT&ll=41.302765,-72.914028&spn=0.014517,0.022505&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 93 in Canton, Massachusetts [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Canton,+MA&ll=42.197749,-71.098022&spn=0.114531,0.180038&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 90 in Weston, Massachusetts [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Weston,+MA&ll=42.337103,-71.261959&spn=0.028570,0.045010&hl=en Map] ]
*Interstate 93 in Reading, Massachusetts [ [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Reading,+MA&ll=42.499947,-71.121025&spn=0.056991,0.090019&hl=en Map] ]

Auxiliary routes

Interstate 95 has many auxiliary routes.
*Florida: I-195- Miami to Miami Beach; I-295- bypass of Jacksonville; I-395- Miami to south Miami Beach; I-595- Interstate 75 to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades
*North Carolina: I-295- Future loop around Fayetteville; I-795- Spur past Wilson to Goldsboro
*Virginia: I-195- Spur into Richmond, Virginia; I-295- Bypass of Petersburg and Richmond; I-395- Spur into Washington, D.C.; I-495- Loop around Washington, D.C.::"Defunct: I-595"
*Washington, D.C.: I-295- Spur into Washington, D.C.; I-395- Spur into Washington, D.C.; I-695- Short, unsigned connector between I-395 and I-295::"Defunct: I-195"
*Maryland: I-195- Spur to Baltimore-Washington International Airport; I-295- Spur into Washington, D.C.; I-395- Spur into Baltimore; I-495- Loop around Washington, D.C.; I-595- Unsigned spur to Annapolis, Maryland; I-695- Loop around Baltimore; I-795- Loop off of I-695 west of Baltimore to Reisterstown; I-895- Bypass of Baltimore::"Defunct: I-595 (Baltimore)"
*Delaware: I-295- Bypass of Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Trenton, New Jersey; I-495- Bypass of Wilmington, Delaware::"Defunct: I-895
*Pennsylvania::"Defunct: I-695; I-895"
*New Jersey: I-195- Spur to Jersey Shore; I-295- Bypass of Philadelphia and Trenton; Route 95W- Western spur of the New Jersey Turnpike::"Defunct: I-695
*New York: I-295, I-695, I-895- Various connectors around New York City; I-495- Spur to Long Island
*Connecticut: I-395- Spur to Worcester, Massachusetts
*Rhode Island: I-195- Spur to I-495 in Massachusetts; I-295- Bypass around Providence::"Defunct: I-895"
*Massachusetts: I-395- Spur from Connecticut to Worcester; I-495- Outer loop around Boston::"Defunct: I-695"
*Maine: I-195- Spur into Old Orchard Beach, Maine; I-295- Goes through Portland; I-395- Spur into Bangor and Brewer; I-495- Unsigned connector between I-95 and I-295 in Falmouth

References