Breezewood, Pennsylvania Breezewood, Pennsylvania Route 30 in Breezewood, Pennsylvania is one of the several gaps in the Interstate Highway System.
A portion of I-70 uses this surface street to connect the non-tolled interstate highway with the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Route 30 in Breezewood, Pennsylvania is one of the several gaps in the Interstate Highway System.
A portion of I-70 uses this surface street to connect the non-tolled interstate highway with the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Breezewood is an unincorporated town in East Providence Township, Bedford County in south-central Pennsylvania.
Along a traditional pathway for Native Americans, European settlers, and British troops amid colonial times, in the early 20th century, the small valley that became known as Breezewood was a prominent stopping place for automobile travelers on the Lincoln Highway, beginning in 1913.
In 1940, Breezewood was designated exit 6 on the just-opened Pennsylvania Turnpike.
In the 1960s, Breezewood became the junction of the Turnpike and the new Interstate 70.
Breezewood has been labeled a "tourist trap" which prevents travelers from easily transitioning between Interstate 70 and the Turnpike, instead routing traffic along a two-mile loop lined with gasoline stations, hotels, and restaurants. This section of Interstate 70 is one of the several parts of the Interstate Highway System which is not a controlled-access highway.
1.6 1960s: Connecting the Turnpike with the new I-70 Late in the 19th century, leaders of the New York Central Railroad (NYC) dreamed of building an east-west barns athwart southern Pennsylvania through the Breezewood region to compete with the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).
It followed the Lincoln Highway from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to San Francisco, California, passing through Breezewood.
Those experiences combined to convince him the need to support assembly of the Interstate Highway System when he became President of the United States in 1953. The portion of the Lincoln Highway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh received the transcontinental U.S.
1940: Pennsylvania Turnpike: The nation's first When the largely alongside Pennsylvania Turnpike was assembled in the 1930s, the tiny easterly Bedford County locality made sure it wasn't left out.
Breezewood is at the initial exit 6 of the Turnpike, which opened at 12:01 a.m.
The new turnpike utilized much of the earlier South Pennsylvania Railroad universal for its right-of-way, grading, and tunnels.
Breezewood, with a faded sign proclaiming it the "Town of Motels" and the "Traveler's Oasis", boomed after the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened, with one gas station and the first traveler's stop, the Gateway Motel and Restaurant. Gateway remains open today as a truck stop affiliated with T/A, competing with other gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and a Flying J franchise.
Over 25 years later, when Interstate 70 was assembled through Pennsylvania, it was co-signed with the Pennsylvania Turnpike for 86 miles, between Breezewood and New Stanton.
The I-70 section of the Turnpike includes tunnels under the easterly continental divide of the Allegheny Mountains, and Laurel Hill, crossing some of Pennsylvania's most rugged terrain.
About the same time as I-70 was built, in the early and mid 1960s, a primary group of improvements was made to the initial turnpike.
These encompassed roadway capacity enhancement along the portion shared with I-70 at the two primary mountain peaks, where traffic had been reduced to two lanes in tunnels, and a realignment of the Breezewood exit and the turnpike to the east from there.
I-70 uses a surface road (part of US 30) with at-grade intersections to connect the freeway heading south to Hancock, Maryland with the ramp to I-76, which through this section is the Pennsylvania Turnpike toll road.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, a division of the United States Department of Transportation, the peculiar arrangement at Breezewood resulted because at the time I-70's toll-free segment was built, the state did not qualify for federal funds under the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 to build a direct interchange, unless it agreed to cease collecting tolls on the Turnpike once the assembly bonds were retired; a direct interchange would have meant that a westbound driver on I-70 could not choose between the toll route and a no-charge alternative, but would be forced to enter the Turnpike.
However, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was not willing to build the interchange with its own funds, due to the expected decline in revenue once Interstate 80 was instead of through the state. Accordingly, the state chose to build the unusual Breezewood arrangement in lieu of a direct interchange, thus qualifying for federal funds because this arrangement gave drivers the option of closing on the untolled US 30. When the Turnpike was later realigned through the area, resulting in what is now the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, the connection from the Turnpike to Breezewood was realigned, shortening the US 30 concurrency slightly.
Although laws have been relaxed since then, small-town businesses, including many traveler services like fast food restaurants, gas stations and motels, have lobbied to keep the gap and not directly connect I-70 to the Turnpike, fearing a loss of business.
Where there are traffic lights on a two-digit Interstate Highway (the other being Interstate 78 in Jersey City, New Jersey at the west portal to the Holland Tunnel).
Even with this abnormality, this is not the only region where the Turnpike has had an indirect interchange with an Interstate highway due to this funding glitch, although it is the only one where an Interstate highway has had to run onto a surface street.
Interstate 79 in Cranberry Township; Interstate 81 near Carlisle; and Interstate 95 in Bristol Township have had, for decades, no direct connection to the mainline Turnpike, with I-79 relying on U.S.
Route 11 for Turnpike access and vice versa, and I-95 had no access to the Turnpike at all.
Route 220 for Turnpike access near Bedford, was only commissioned in 1998.) While direct access between I-79 and the Turnpike became possible in 2003 and another universal to connect I-95 with the Turnpike is presently underway, the indirect access in Carlisle remains.
Approximately 2.6 million vehicles exited the turnpike through Breezewood in 1995. By 2003, that figure had increased to 3.4 million. During high traffic periods, the arrangement can result in extended traffic jams on all three highways. According to a 1990 New York Times article, Breezewood offered "no less than 10 motels, 14 fast-food restaurants and 7 fuel and service stations, including two widespread truck stops." Approximately 1,000 citizens are working in Breezewood's commercial district. Business Week stated in 1991 that Breezewood is "perhaps the purest example yet devised of the great American tourist trap...the Las Vegas of roadside strips, a blaze of neon in the middle of nowhere, a polyp on the nation's interstate highway system." The Breezewood improve is not incorporated under Pennsylvania law and is treated as a portion of East Providence Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania.
Oblique air photo of Breezewood and vicinity, facing northeast, and showing Interstate 70, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, U.S.
Breezewood is situated in the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province of the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania.
"Breezewood Comes Alive At Night As Turnpikes' Weary Travelers Pause".
Articles relating to Breezewood, Pennsylvania
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