Talk:Breezewood, Pennsylvania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Breezewood, Pennsylvania is an unincorporated commercial stretch of U.S. 30 in Pennsylvania that was served by exit 12 of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When the Interstate Highway system was authorized, several states had already built limited access divided highways as toll roads by issuing bonds for their construction. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first of these, following the right of way of the defunct South Pennsylvania Railroad.
It was debated what to do where someone had already taken the initiative to provide a modern highway. Bypassing these with Federally funded freeways would have been a hardship on the bondholders. It was decided that Turnpikes could be incorporated if they met the standards for construction and that the tolls would be removed when the bonds were retired.
Interstate 70 was routed from Baltimore to Wheeling, West Virginia over a portion of the Turnpike. At Breezwood, if the state used Federal funds to connect the two highways they would have been agreeing to remove the toll. The Turnpike Authority already had an exit to U.S. 30 and did not feel compelled to build the connection, so I-70 was built, abruptly leaving the alignment of the old National Road West of Hagerstown and running due North, Crossing the Turnpike without a connection and making an at-grade intersection with U.S. 30.
It was strange, but given the circumstances, it worked.
When the Ray's Hill and Sideling Hill tunnels were later bypassed, the stub of the old Pennsylvania Turnpike was left as the Breezewood interchange. That created the current strange configuration of the exit. It could be easily fixed, but now the merchants of Breezewood lobby that they would be harmed by the loss of traffic.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.12.61.209 (talk • contribs) 20:24, 15 May 2006.
