Interstate 68

Interstate 68

I-68 is a 112.9-mile Interstate Highway in the U.S. states of West Virginia and Maryland. It connects I-79 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to I-70 in Hancock, Maryland. The freeway mainly spans rural areas and crosses numerous mountain ridges along its route. In Maryland, the highway is known as the National Freeway, an homage to the historic National Road.

About Interstate 68 in brief

Summary Interstate 68I-68 is a 112.9-mile Interstate Highway in the U.S. states of West Virginia and Maryland. It connects I-79 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to I-70 in Hancock, Maryland. The freeway mainly spans rural areas and crosses numerous mountain ridges along its route. The construction of I-68 began in 1965 and continued for over 25 years, with completion on August 2, 1991. In Maryland, the highway is known as the National Freeway, an homage to the historic National Road. It provides a major transportation route in western Maryland and northern West Virginia. It also provides an alternative to the Pennsylvania Turnpike for westbound traffic from Washington, D. C. and Baltimore. It is also Corridor E of the Appalachian Development Highway System, which was meant to provide access to areas that were not previously served by the Interstate Highway System. The highway was designated as U. S. Route 48 from 1965 until the freeway’s construction was completed in 1991, and is now known as Interstate 68. The National Road was the first federally funded road built in the United States, authorized by Congress in 1806. It ran from 1811 to 1837, establishing a road that extended from Cumberland to Vandalia, Illinois. It was followed by US 40, which followed the route of the National Road through Pennsylvania and Maryland, and then US 219 and US 220, which overlaps with the freeway from Keysers Ridge to the eastern end of the freeway at Hancock. In the early 1960s, as the Interstate.

Highway System was being built, east–west travel through western Maryland was difficult, as US 40 was a two-lane country road with steep grades and hairpin turns. In 1965, the Appalachian. Development Act was passed, authorizing the establishment of the Interstate highways, comprising 3,090 miles of highways from New York to New York, New Jersey, and New England. The Interstate Highway. System was set up to set up a set of corridors for the highways, which were to be defined from Mississippi to New Jersey and from New England to New Hampshire. The first section of the highway, the Cumberland Thruway, was completed and opened to the public on June 10, 1965. The elevated highway connected Lee Street in west Cumberland, Maryland, to east Cumberland Avenue in east Maryland, providing a quicker path for motorists traveling through the town. After the construction of Interstate 68, this route through Cumberland became US  40 Alternate. After the highway’s construction, this portion of the road became US 40 Alternate. The Cumberland. Thruways was extended to US  220 and then to US 220 and then by Vocke Road to Vocke. At Moose Curve, the road curves sharply at the bottom of Haystack Mountain, and at the top of the Haystack. The road cut at Sideling Hill exposed geological features of the mountain and has become a tourist attraction. The two largest cities connected by the highway are MorgantOWN, West. Virginia, and Cumberland,. Maryland.