Massachusetts Turnpike - History

History

Plans for the Turnpike date back to at least 1948, when the Western Expressway was being planned. The original section would have connected Boston's Inner Belt to Newton with connections with US 20 and Route 30 for traffic continuing west. Later extensions would take the road to and beyond Worcester. From the beginning, the corridor was included in federal plans for the Interstate Highway System, stretching west to the New York state line and beyond to Albany.

Also included in the route was the planned Springfield Bypass, which had been proposed to provide a bypass of US 20 in the Springfield area. Part of this route (and that of the eventual Turnpike) used the grading from the never-opened Hampden Railroad. Similarly, the West Stockbridge Bypass provided a new route of Route 102 from Route 183 in Stockbridge west to Route 102 just east of the state line in West Stockbridge; this latter route was built prior to the Turnpike.

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority was created in 1952 by a special act of the Massachusetts General Court (legislature) upon the recommendation of Governor Dever and his Commissioner of Public Works, William F. Callahan. (1952 Acts and Resolves chapter 354; 1952 Senate Doc. 1.) The enabling act was modeled upon that of the Mystic River Bridge Authority (1946 Acts and Resolves chapter 562), but several changes were made that would prove of great importance fifty years later. Callahan served as chairman of the Authority until his death in April 1964.

When the attorneys were searching land titles along the proposed route, they discovered that sections of the original land had been granted by the King of England to some of the landowner's ancestors. Construction began in 1955, and the whole four-lane road from Route 102 at the state line to Route 128 in Weston opened on May 15, 1957. The Berkshire Thruway opened on May 26, 1959, connecting the west end to the New York State Thruway mainline south of Albany. Prior to its opening, traffic used Route 22 and US 20 in New York. At the Massachusetts/New York state line, one can see where the Turnpike made an abrupt right turn before terminating at Route 102, as the old pavement still exists for Turnpike Authority and State Police vehicles to access this remote stretch of highway.

After political and legal battles related to the Boston Extension inside Route 128, construction began on March 5, 1962, with the chosen alignment running next to the Boston and Albany Railroad and reducing that line to two tracks. In September 1964 the part from Route 128 east to exit 18 (Allston) opened, and the rest was finished on February 18, 1965, taking it to the Central Artery.

The Interstate 90 designation was assigned to the Turnpike in 1959 with the completion of plans for the Interstate Highway System. Early proposals took I-90 across the northern part of the state, along Route 2, but this was rejected as too costly. With the completion of the Boston Extension, that too was designated as I-90.

In the 1990s, then-Governor William Weld took the decision to turn over the assets of Boston's Big Dig project to the Turnpike Authority. During this time he appointed James Kerasiotes to the Turnpike Authority to continue the authority's oversight of the Big Dig project.

In 1991, construction began on the extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike to Logan Airport, via the Ted Williams Tunnel as part of the Big Dig interstate/tunnel project. The final extension opened in 2003; the eastern end of I-90 now merges into Route 1A.

The legislature separated the Turnpike into a western portion, from the New York border to Route 128, and the eastern Metropolitan Highway System, which includes a 15-mile (24 km) stretch of the Turnpike from Route 128 to East Boston, the Ted Williams, Sumner and Callahan tunnels under Boston Harbor, and I-93 from Southampton Street through the Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill tunnel and the Leonard P. Zakim Bridge to the foot of the Tobin Bridge. Finances for the two parts of the Turnpike are accounted for separately.