page_title: Massachusetts Route 128
section_title: Route description
hierarchical_section_title: Massachusetts Route 128 / Route description
caption_attribution_description: English: I-95 south where it leaves Route 128, which now ends here; I-93 north begins ahead. US 1 continues straight. Taken ca. 2000 by SPUI.
context_page_description: Route 128, also known as the Yankee Division Highway, is a state highway in the U.S. state of Massachusetts maintained by the Highway Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Spanning 57 miles, it is one of two beltways around Boston, and is known as the "inner" beltway, especially around areas where it is 15 miles or less outside of Boston. The route's current southern terminus is at the junction of I-95 and I-93 in Canton, and it follows I-95 clockwise around Boston for 37.5 miles before I-95 leaves the highway, and Route 128 continues on its own in a northeasterly direction towards Cape Ann. The northern terminus lies in Gloucester a few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean. All but the northernmost 3 miles are divided freeway, with the remainder being a surface road.
  Originally designated in 1927 along a series of surface streets, Route 128 provided a circumferential route around the city of Boston. The original route extended from the seaport of Gloucester, on the North Shore, to the beach resort community of Hull on the South Shore.
context_section_description: Route 128 begins in Norfolk County in the south, at the interchange with I-93, I-95, and US 1 in Canton. Until the 1990s, its southern terminus was located at the junction of I-93, US 1, and Route 3 (the Braintree Split) in Braintree. At this present-day terminus, 128 becomes concurrent with I-95, and follows the sequential exit numbering scheme used by I-95 as it enters Massachusetts from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It also begins a wrong-way concurrency with US 1; as 128 and I-95 are signed traveling north, US 1 is signed traveling south, and vice versa. US 1 splits onto its own roadbed at exit 15 in Dedham.
  In the 1980s, the administration of Governor Michael Dukakis made a policy decision to focus on public mass transportation rather than building new highways through Boston and the inner suburbs ("inside of Route 128"), cancelling plans for completion of a Northeast Expressway and construction of a Southwest Expressway to carry I-95 through downtown Boston.  This policy cascaded into designation of the segment of the Yankee Division Highway between the existing I-95 junction in Canton and the new I-95 junction in Peabody as I-95 rather than building a new highway to complete the connection, coupled with a decision to extend I-93 southward along the Central Artery and John Fitzgerald Expressway (Massachusetts Route 3) and onto the southern end of the Yankee Division Highway to the I-95 junction in Canton.  After completion of the I-95/Route 128 interchange in Peabody in 1988, the State Highway Department changed the numbers of all exits south of the newly completed junction to those of the respective interstate highway designations.  Thus, the highway now has three sets of exit numbers -- I-93 exits 7 through 1 from the southern terminus to the I-95 junction in Canton, I-95 exits 12 through 45 from the I-95 junction in Canton to the I-95 junction in Peabody, and the original Route 128 exits 29 through 12 from the I-95 junction in Peabody to the northern terminus.  The interchange with I-93 in Woburn, which was Route 128 Exit 37 before the renumbering, became I-93 Exit 37 in the renumbering and thus coincidentally retained its number.
  As a result of this political decision, about two thirds of Route 128 runs in tandem with I-95 from Canton north to Peabody, and after I-95 splits off and continues north from Peabody toward New Hampshire, northward on its own right of way from Peabody to Gloucester. The I-95 and I-93 signage were added in the mid-1970s when plans to construct I-95 through Boston, directly connecting the two I-95/Route 128 interchanges, were cancelled leaving a gap filled using Route 128. An unused cloverleaf in Canton, now partially removed, was one of the leftover structures from this plan as well as the existing Northeast Expressway (now part of US 1.)
  The decision to reroute I-95 onto Route 128 rather than building a new highway inside of Route 128 has contributed to two significant problems.
  At the junction in Canton, I-95 northbound uses the original cloverleaf, which is fairly tight, to transition from the southern segment to the Yankee Division Highway.  More than a few unsuspecting truckers have entered the cloverleaf at full highway speed and thus managed to flip over their rigs.  As a result, the cloverleaf is now known as "Dead Man's Curve" to locals.
  The I-95 overhead traffic also has become a major contributor to congestion on the segment of the highway known as I-95.
  The area along the western part of Route 128 is home to a number of high-technology firms and corporations. This part of Route 128 was dubbed "America's Technology Highway", and signs marking it that way were put in place beginning in October 1982. Two years later, those blue signs were changed to read "America's Technology Region" after complaints from veterans groups that noted the highway already had a name: the Yankee Division Highway, a name bestowed in 1941 in honor of the U.S. Army unit first formed in Boston in 1917.
  The political decision not to build new highways inside of Route 128 also led to abandonment of plans to e
caption: Since 1997, Route 128's southern end has been in Canton, where Interstate 95 exits southwestward on its own roadbed, and Interstate 93 north begins. U.S. Route 1 north continues straight.
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