page_title: Interstate 476
section_title: Blue Route history
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 476 / History / Blue Route history
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: Southern terminus of the incomplete "Blue Route" near Haverford State Hospital. The Blue Route would become I-476 20 years later.
context_page_description: Interstate 476 is a 132.1-mile auxiliary Interstate Highway of Interstate 76 in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania designated between Interstate 95 near Chester and Interstate 81 near Scranton, serving as the primary north–south Interstate corridor through eastern Pennsylvania. It consists of both the 20-mile Mid-County Expressway, locally referred to as the "Blue Route", through the suburban Philadelphia-area counties of Delaware and Montgomery, and the tolled, 110.6-mile Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike connecting the Philadelphia metropolitan area with the Lehigh Valley, the Poconos, and the Wyoming Valley. The Blue Route passes through suburban areas, while the Northeast Extension predominantly runs through rural areas of mountains, forest and farmland, with development closer to Philadelphia and in the Lehigh Valley and the Wyoming Valley. I-476 intersects many major roads including Interstate 76 in West Conshohocken, Interstate 276 in Plymouth Meeting, U.S. Route 22 near Allentown, and Interstate 80 near Hickory Run State Park.
context_section_description: Originally planned as far back as 1929, the Mid-County Expressway was later proposed by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission as the "Chester Extension" of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1954. After the advent of the Interstate Highway System, the project was transferred to the Pennsylvania Department of Highways to be built as part of the system, designating it first as Interstate 495, and later as Interstate 480, as I-76 was designated as I-80S at the time. The present-day I-476 designation was assigned on February 6, 1964, when I-80S was renumbered as I-76.
  The road received its nickname from a 1958 location report indicating various proposed geographic configurations of an expressway through Delaware County with lines of various colors on a map. The "blue route" through the Crum Creek valley won out over other contenders, which included a more easterly "red route" and "yellow route" and a more westerly "green route".
  As one of the most controversial Interstate Highways in Pennsylvania, construction of I-476 began in 1967, but was not completed until 1991 between MacDade Boulevard (Exit 1) and Interstate 76 (Exit 16), and until 1992 between Germantown Pike east/Chemical Road (Exit 19) and Interstate 276/Pennsylvania Turnpike (Exit 20), due to litigation between the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and several communities in the road's path over environmental concerns. However, the section of Interstate 476 (south end of I-476) between I-95 and MacDade Blvd. (Exit 1) was opened in 1987, but signage labeled it as a route "To MacDade Blvd" until 1991 when I-476/The Blue Route was opened between Exits 1 and 16, and connected with the short existing section of roadway dating back to 1979 from Exit 16-Exit 19.
  An agreement in 1985 led to many environmental compromises in the road's design, including a downsized four-lane design south of Pennsylvania Route 3 (although a part of the span between exits 9 and 5 has a third lane on the southbound side), ramp meters, and federal scenic route status, prohibiting the erection of advertisement billboards along the entire freeway portion. The Radnor Gateway Enhancement Strategy was implemented to install largescale sculpture elements by artist William P. Reimann, most notably the stone griffin and cairn at Exit 13. While the redesigned highway was largely well-received, the constriction to four lanes has led to bottleneck conditions in the area, and many communities that originally opposed the road have now called for its widening. The Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed I-476 "the most costly, most bitterly opposed highway in Pennsylvania history" due to the decades of opposition it garnered.
  In the 2000s, the road underwent a complete rehabilitation project, including paving, bridge repair, and ramp maintenance of the entire length of the freeway between Interstate 95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The section between I-95 and I-76 was completed in 2007 and the section between I-76 and I-276 was completed in the end of 2011.
caption: A stretch of the Blue Route near Haverford State Hospital in the early 1970s. It would not be completed until the early 1990s.
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