Massachusetts has several large interstates that serve it, including:
I-90, the northernmost east-west interstate highway in the U.S., called the Massachusetts Turnpike from Boston west via Worcester and Springfield to the New York-Massachusetts state line.
I-93, which begins just south of Boston, goes under much of downtown (the famed "Big Dig"), then heads north to New Hampshire, crossing the Merrimack River at Andover.
I-91 follows Connecticut River south through Greenfield, Northampton and Springfield in Massachusetts, continuing south to New Haven, Connecticut. To the north it passes along the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, then through eastern Vermont to Canada.
I-84 has a very short length in Massachusetts. It begins off the Turnpike at Sturbridge, and is the quickest route from much of the state to Hartford and New York City.
I-95, the major north-south highway of the East Coast, enters the state at Attleboro and heads toward Boston. It goes around the city itself, linking the western suburbs of Needham, Newton, Waltham and Lexington. It then turns north, through Woburn and Wakefield, before once again turning north and heading towards New Hampshire and Maine. The section of I-95 that forms a sort of belt around Boston is locally known as "Route 128", and its Interstate designation is rarely used by natives.
I-290 runs from I-495 in Marlborough through downtown Worcester and ends at the Mass Pike in Auburn.
I-395 is essentially the same road as I-290. South of the Mass Pike, I-395 goes from Auburn south to Webster and is the road to Eastern Connecticut, including Mystic, New London and the Connecticut casino resorts.
I-190 is a short road that connects Worcester to the northern cities of Fitchburg and Leominster.
I-495 forms a sort of "outer belt" around Boston, beginning near the base of Cape Cod and swinging west, through Foxboro, Franklin, Marlborough and the Merrimack Valley before joining I-95 near the New Hampshire border.
Other important non-interstate highways in Massachusetts include: U.S. Routes 1, 6, and 20; U.S. Route/State Route 3; and State Routes 2, 9, and 24.
Use SmarTraveler to determine traffic conditions in the Metro Boston area.
Dial 511 on your cell phone to listen to up-to-date traffic conditions for all major highways.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Massachusetts
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Massachusetts - updated Apr 2024
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Massachusetts Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
