Skip to main content

The Abandoned New Stanton Interchange Ramps

Image
By
For nearly 50 years, the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange with Interstate 70 and US 119 in New Stanton has been a rather free-flowing double trumpet, grade separated interchange between the two freeways.  But for the first 23 years of the turnpike, this interchange was vastly different.  It was the only non-trumpet interchange within the system (excluding termini points) and featured very tricky and gridlock causing left turns within the interchange.  (See image on right).  With the birth of the Interstate Highway System in the mid-1950s, new freeways were built and in many cases the Turnpike kept the original interchange using local roads to connect to the new freeways.  Interchanges with what would become I-81, I-176, I-80, I-70 in Breezewood, and I-79 were left with the original design.

Meanwhile in the 1950's, the state began building a freeway that ran from New Stanton west towards Washington.  This freeway, signed PA 71, was built to connect those in the industrial Mon Valley to the Turnpike.  Opened to the Turnpike by 1959, the amount of traffic using this interchange increased substantially.  It was in October of 1963 that the PTC began a construction project that would cost $1.6 million to completely replace the interchange.  A little over a year later on November 12, 1964, the new New Stanton interchange officially opened to traffic. (1)  This was the first turnpike interchange to be completely replaced, and it also was the first interchange that was reconfigured to provide direct Interstate-to-Interstate traffic.

For years, the were still remnants of the old interchange configuration left.  However, over the past two decades Turnpike mainline widening, construction and tie in to PA Turnpike 66, and the modernization of Interstate 70 in New Stanton has slowly removed pieces of what once was.  In 2003, Bernie Newman captured a number of photos showing the remnants of the old New Stanton interchange.  His photos are below.


The original eastbound New Stanton offramp (Bernie Newman)
A long view of the eastbound offramp.  It is amazing the condition of these old ramps after nearly 40 years.  (Bernie Newman)
The onramp onto the eastbound lanes of the Turnpike.  Recent construction of a new viaduct has created an elevation change from where the onramp would have met the highway.  (Bernie Newman)


The on-ramp to the Turnpike comes at you in this photo.  (Bernie Newman)
A wider shot showing both eastbound ramps.  The ramps are curving to go underneath the Turnpike.  (Bernie Newman)

A ground shot of the surprisingly in good condition pavement used for the ramps.  (Bernie Newman)
Along US 119, the ramps are also found.  Construction of the current New Stanton interchange and the later addition of a connection to PA Turnpike 66 has over time overtaken the ramps to US 119 and the former toll facilities.  (Bernie Newman)
Site Navigation:
Sources & Links:
  • (1) Cupper, Dan. "The Pennsylvania Turnpike: A History.  55th Anniversary Edition."  Lebanon, PA: Applied Arts, 1995. 38-39.
  • Bernie Newman
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more