History
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was planned in the 1930s in order to improve transportation across the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania. The roadway utilized seven tunnels that were bored for the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railroad project in the 1880s. The highway opened on October 1, 1940 between Irwin and Carlisle as the first long-distance limited-access road in the United States. Following its completion, several other toll roads and the Interstate Highway System were built. The highway was extended east to Valley Forge in 1950 and west to the Ohio border in 1951. The tollway was completed to the New Jersey border at the Delaware River in 1954; the Delaware River Bridge opened in 1956. In the 1960s, the entire highway was made four lanes wide by adding a second tube at four of the tunnels and by bypassing the other three. Since then, many other improvements have occurred, such as the addition of new interchanges, the widening of portions of the highway to six lanes, and the reconstruction of the original section. An interchange is planned at I-95 that will fill a gap in that route.
Read more about this topic: Pennsylvania Turnpike
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)