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Portal:Maryland roads

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Maryland Roads

The Maryland highway system consists of roads in the US state of Maryland that are maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). The three main systems of roads that comprise the Maryland highway system are Interstate Highways, US Highways, and Maryland state highways. Other roads in Maryland are maintained by individual cities and counties.

Interstate Highways and US Highways are assigned at the national level. Interstate Highways are numbered in a grid—even-numbered routes are east–west routes (the lowest numbers are along Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico), and odd-numbered routes are north–south routes (with the lowest numbers along the Pacific Ocean). US Highways are also numbered in a grid—even numbered for east–west routes (with the lowest numbers along Canada) and odd numbered for north–south routes (with the lowest numbers along the Atlantic Ocean). For this reason, mainline (two-digit) Interstate Highways in Maryland all have numbers between 81 and 97 for north-south routes and between 68 and 70 for east-west routes. In addition, mainline US Highways all have numbers between 1 and 29 for north-south routes and between 40 and 50 for east-west routes. Three-digit Interstate and U.S. Highways, also known as "child routes," are branches off their main one- or two-digit "parents". The Interstate and US Highways are generally maintained by the SHA, with some toll roads maintained by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) and some roads maintained by municipalities, including most roads in the city of Baltimore. Interstate 95 (I-95) and U.S. Route 40 (US 40) are the longest examples in the state.

Maryland state highways are the other state highways maintained by the SHA. Some state highways are maintained by municipalities while the Maryland Route 200 (MD 200) toll road is maintained by the MDTA. All roads maintained by the SHA are assigned route numbers, ranging from through routes passing through multiple counties to minor service roads that are less than a mile long. Many of the shorter state highways are unsigned. Some routes consist of multiple segments with letter suffixes; these suffixes are unsigned with the exception of MD 835A. There are two geographical clusters for Maryland state highways. The first, ranging from 2 to 37, consists of longer intercounty routes, with 2 to 6 in Southern Maryland, 7 to 10 originally skipped, 12 to 21 on the Eastern Shore, and 22 to 37 running west from Central Maryland to Western Maryland. The second cluster consists of routes from 38 to 378, running across the state from Garrett County in the west to Worcester County in the east. Numbers above 378 are assigned randomly.

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View south along the Baltimore–Washington Parkway at the north end of the NPS-maintained segment
View south along the Baltimore–Washington Parkway at the north end of the NPS-maintained segment

The Baltimore–Washington Parkway is a highway in the U.S. state of Maryland, running southwest from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The road begins at an interchange with U.S. Route 50 and Maryland Route 201 near Cheverly at the D.C. border, and continues northeast as a parkway maintained by the National Park Service (NPS) to Maryland Route 175 near Fort Meade. This portion of the parkway has the hidden Maryland Route 295 designation. After leaving park service boundaries the highway is maintained by the state and signed with the MD 295 designation. Upon entering Baltimore, the Baltimore Department of Transportation takes over maintenance of the road and it continues north to an interchange with I-95. Here, MD 295 continues north unsigned on Russell Street into downtown Baltimore, where it follows Paca Street northbound and Greene Street southbound to an intersection with U.S. Route 40. Plans for a parkway linking Baltimore and Washington date back to Pierre Charles L'Enfant's original layout for Washington D.C. in the 18th century but did not fully develop until the 1920s. In the mid-1940s, plans for the design of the parkway were finalized and construction began in 1947 for the state-maintained portion and in 1950 for the NPS-maintained segment. The entire parkway opened to traffic in stages between 1950 and 1954. Following the completion of the B–W Parkway, suburban growth took place in both Washington and Baltimore. In the 1960s and the 1970s, there were plans to make it a part of Interstate 295 and possibly I-95; however, they never came through. Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the NPS portion of the road was modernized. (more...)

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The abandoned western stub end of unfinished Interstate 170 in Baltimore
The abandoned western stub end of unfinished Interstate 170 in Baltimore
Credit: User:Mitchazenia
The abandoned western stub end of unfinished Interstate 170 in Baltimore

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