Massachusetts Route 18
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Route 18 | ||||
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Route information | ||||
Maintained by MassDOT | ||||
Length: | 41.59 mi[1] (66.93 km) | |||
Major junctions | ||||
South end: | ![]() |
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North end: | ![]() |
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Location | ||||
Counties: | Bristol, Plymouth, Norfolk | |||
Highway system | ||||
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Route 18 is a south–north state highway in southeastern Massachusetts. Beginning in the city of New Bedford, it runs as a freeway for approximately 2 miles (3.2 km), continuing as a surface street until Weymouth.
Route description
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Route 18 starts as a four-lane freeway, a continuation of John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway in downtown New Bedford, at U.S. Route 6. After the intersection with I-195, Route 18 runs via surface streets parallel to Route 140 for a while, up to a connector road with Route 140 northbound. (Before its highway route was constructed, Route 140 followed County Road from Taunton until terminating at Route 18 in Freetown near the New Bedford line.) Route 18 then continues on a generally northerly direction. The highway goes through the East Freetown section of Freetown, Lakeville (with a three-mile (5 km) concurrency with Route 105 along Assawompset Pond), Middleborough, where the highway meets U.S. Route 44 and Route 28 at the Middleboro rotary just north of Interstate 495, beginning a six-mile (10 km) concurrency with Route 28 until the center of Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Whitman, Abington, and Weymouth, ending at Route 53.
Highway improvements
A major fault of Route 18 north of Bridgewater is its intersection patterns. At all lights north of Bridgewater center, the road widens to four lanes temporarily, before and after the intersection. While this helps alleviate backups at the lights and assists vehicles turning left off of the route, it creates bottlenecks after the intersection, where the two lanes re-merge into one.[2] To help this, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's Highway Division will be widening the section of Route 18 from Highland Place in Weymouth to Route 139 in Abington from two to four lanes. The $26 million project was originally planned to begin in 2013, but had yet to break ground as of July 2014.
Major intersections
County | Location | mi | km | Destinations | Notes |
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Bristol | New Bedford | 0.00 | 0.00 | JFK Memorial Highway south – Downtown New Bedford | Southern terminus |
0.00 | 0.00 | ![]() |
No southbound entrance; No northbound access to US 6 west | ||
0.30 | 0.48 | Hillman Street | Northbound entrance only | ||
0.50 | 0.80 | Purchase Street | Southbound exit only | ||
Weld Street | Southbound exit only | ||||
1.1 | 1.8 | ![]() |
Exit 15 on I-195; Northbound exit and southbound entrance | ||
Coggeshall Street | Northern terminus of freeway section | ||||
4.6 | 7.4 | ![]() |
Exit 6 on Route 140; Southbound exit and northbound entrance via Ashley Boulevard | ||
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East Freetown | ![]() |
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Plymouth | Lakeville | 13.40 | 21.57 | ![]() |
Southern terminus of concurrency with Route 105 |
16.10 | 25.91 | ![]() |
Northern terminus of concurrency with Route 105 | ||
18.00 | 28.97 | ![]() |
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Middleborough | 19.60 | 31.54 | ![]() ![]() |
Exit 5 on I-495 | |
20.00 | 32.19 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rotary; Southern terminus of concurrency with Route 28 | ||
Bridgewater | 26.10 | 42.00 | ![]() |
Southern terminus of an ellipse rotary; Southern terminus of concurrency with Route 104 | |
26.20 | 42.16 | ![]() ![]() |
Northern terminus of an ellipse rotary; Northern terminus of concurrencies with Routes 28 and 104 | ||
East Bridgewater | 28.00 | 45.06 | ![]() |
Southern terminus of concurrency with Route 106 | |
28.2 | 45.4 | ![]() |
Northern terminus of concurrency with Route 106 | ||
Whitman | 32.0 | 51.5 | ![]() |
Site of the Toll House Inn (birthplace of the chocolate chip cookie) northwest of here | |
32.7 | 52.6 | ![]() |
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Abington | 34.5 | 55.5 | ![]() |
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36.1 | 58.1 | ![]() |
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Norfolk | Weymouth | 37.7 | 60.7 | ![]() |
Northern terminus of Route 58 |
40.5 | 65.2 | ![]() |
Exit 16 on Route 3 | ||
41.59 | 66.93 | ![]() |
Northern terminus | ||
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi
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References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Massachusetts Route 18. |
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Executive Office of Transportation, Office of Transportation Planning - 2005 Road Inventory
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (Downtown Connector) on Bostonroads.com
- Infobox road maps for Wikidata migration
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- Numbered routes in Massachusetts
- Abington, Massachusetts
- New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Freetown, Massachusetts
- Lakeville, Massachusetts
- Middleborough, Massachusetts
- Bridgewater, Massachusetts
- East Bridgewater, Massachusetts
- Whitman, Massachusetts
- Weymouth, Massachusetts
- Transportation in Bristol County, Massachusetts
- Transportation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
- Transportation in Plymouth County, Massachusetts