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Delaware Turnpike

The Delaware Turnpike (also named John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway along with the adjacent Maryland route) is an 11.2 mile (18.0 km.) tolled highway that lies entirely within the State of Delaware. Running in a general southwest to northeast direction, paralleling nearby U.S. Route 40, the highway connects the cities of Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (via I-95) and New York City (via the New Jersey Turnpike). It is the most expensive toll road in the United States based on a cost per mile average.

The Delaware Turnpike was built between 1960 and 1963 and was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy on November 15, 1963, just one week before his assassination in the Dallas motorcade. The highway is designated as Interstate 95 between the Maryland State Line and Newport, Delaware and as Interstate 295 between Newport and the Farnhurst interchage with U.S. Routes 13 and 40. It is owned and maintained by the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT).

History

Early history

The history of the Delaware Turnpike goes back to the 1950s when the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and the New Jersey Turnpike were opened between 1953 and 1957. Originally, the State of Delaware wanted to build a four-lane toll highway that paralleled the present-day U.S. 13/40 highway in New Castle, Delaware, connecting to a corresponding toll highway in Maryland in what is now U.S. Route 301. With the formation of the Interstate Highway System, the predecessor of the present-day DelDOT and the Maryland Transportation Authority decided to build a route that would provide a more direct connection with Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Because of a fallout between the governors of both Delaware and Maryland and the Eisenhower Administration, both the MTA and DelDOT decided to build their sections of I-95, but unlike the earlier Pennsylvania and New Jersey Turnpikes, the Northeast Toll Road and the Delaware Turnpike would be built to the Interstate Highway standards of its day. Unlike the narrow median strip of the Pennsylvania Turnpike or the Jersey barrier of the New Jersey Turnpike, both the Northeast Toll Road and the Delaware Turnpike featured wide median barriers (since narrowed due to road expansion projects), (at the time of completion) two 15-foot wide travel lanes, and a unified exit numbering system. Three service plazas, two in Maryland and one near Newark, Delaware, straddle the middle of the roadway.

The Delaware Turnpike served as one of few examples of the building of a toll highway in the era of the building of a nationwide Interstate Highway network. Other highway authorities, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, had highway expansion projects in the planning stages when the Interstate Highway Act was signed, but were dropped in favor of the Interstate Highway system, with most of the former planned Pennsylvania Turnpike routes becoming outright Interstate Highways in their own right. With federal funds given to both Maryland and Delaware under both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, all other sections of I-95 in Maryland (between the Capital Beltway and Baltimore) and Delaware (between the Delaware Turnpike and the Pennsylvania State Line) were built as non-tolled freeways.

Extensions studied

In the 1970s, DelDOT studied a plan to rebuild U.S. Route 13 into a so-called "Dover Extension" that would connect the main highway with the state capital with a high-speed roadway. Local opposition, especially farmers, killed the original "Dover Extension" project but it would be resurrected in the 1980s and would become the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway (signed as Delaware Rt. 1), which was completed by DelDOT in 2000.

Another extension, using most of the original Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Delaware Memorial Bridge route and signed as U.S. Route 301, would have used what is now Delaware Route 896 between Newark and Summit Bridge, Delaware and a new right-of-way parallel to, but west of Delaware Rt. 896 between Summit Bridge and the present-day U.S. Rt. 301 highway in Maryland. Despite the high hopes of this U.S. 301 Extension being built (the Summit Bridge itself and its approaches, completed in 1960, was built to highway standards), local opposition forced DelDOT to abandoned its plans for the U.S. 301 extension in the 1990s, resurrecting it in 2006 as the planned relocation of US 301 that will connect the present-day U.S. Route 301 highway in Maryland with the Delaware Rt. 1 Turnpike near St. Georges, Delaware.

Tolls

The Delaware Turnpike is by far the most expensive toll road in the United States going by the cost per mile average. Effective October 1, 2007, the toll became $4.00 each direction; 35.7 cents per mile (increasing from $3.00, or 26.8 cents for mile), in both directions at the highway's Maryland toll plaza located between the Maryland State Line and Delaware Rt. 896. By comparison, if the cost for traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike were 35.7 cents a mile, the cost for traversing the entire length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike would be $128.52, instead of the much more reasonable $19.75 it currently costs. Like most toll highways in the Northeast U.S., toll collection is done either with cash fare or with E-ZPass electronic toll collection. Prior to 1982, tolls were collected on the Delaware Turnpike's three exits (Delaware Rt. 896, Delaware Rt. 273, and Delaware Rts. 1 & 7), but have since been removed, their former locations marked with straight wide sections on entrance or exit ramps where the tolls were collected.

However, it is easy and fast (approx. four miles, less than 10 mins.) to bypass the $4.00 one-way toll. If traveling north from Maryland, take JFK Highway Exit 109 (MD Rt. 279 to Rt. 2 North) and rejoin Delaware Toll Road at Exit 1. If traveling south out of Delaware, take Exit 1B of Toll Road and rejoin JFK Highway in Maryland at Exit 109. map of toll bypass

Currently, DelDOT is studying the possibility of resuming the implementation of ramp tolls at the Delaware Rt. 896 and Delaware Rt. 273 interchanges in the need to fund improvements of the interchanges with Delaware Rt. 896 and Delaware Rt. 1/7. The ramp tolls, if installed, would be similar in appearance to the automated ramp toll collection system used on the Delaware Rt. 1 Turnpike and will have dedicated cash and "E-ZPass Only" lanes. DelDOT is also planning to replace the aging mainline toll plaza with a new one with both high-speed E-ZPass lanes and traditional cash and slow-speed "E-ZPass Only" lanes.

Design

Originally opened with a total of four travel lanes (two in each direction), the highway currently has a total of eight travel lanes between the mainline toll plaza and the triple interchange with I-295, the I-95 freeway to Wilmington, Delaware, and I-495 to the Port of Wilmington and Philadelphia. A short three-lane section of the highway exists between the mainline toll plaza and the Maryland State Line, but with the planned toll plaza total rebuild project, both DelDOT and the MTA have plans of expanding their corresponding highways between the toll plaza and Maryland Route 279 to eight lanes, eliminating traffic snarls that plague the highway.

With the plans of rebuilding the Del. Turnpike-Del. Rt. 1/7 interchange in Christiana, Delaware, DelDOT will start, in June, 2007, of expanding the highway between Del. Rts. 1/7 to the triple Interstate junction from eight lanes to a total of ten lanes, making the roadway one of the widest roadways in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area (outside of the short stretch of I-76 between the Walt Whitman Bridge and I-295/NJ Rt. 42 in Camden, New Jersey). This expansion project would not only allow DelDOT to construct multi-lane high-speed flyover ramps for the Del. Rt. 1/7 interchange, but also eliminate a major bottleneck that occurs south of the U.S. 202/Del. Rt. 141 interchange when traffic from I-295 and the New Jersey Turnpike must merge onto the highway.

Services

A full-service plaza, located between the Del. Rt. 896 and Del. Rt. 273 interchanges, has both food, gas, and bathroom services, along with an information center located near the north entrance. Food services include a Bob's Big Boy, Roy Rogers (one of the few remaining in the Philadelphia Metro Area), Sbarro pizzeria, and a Starbucks. Fuel services are provided by Sunoco (formerly Mobil) which occupies a plot at southern end of the plaza, Exxon had a station at the northern end that has since closed.

The plaza is maintained by Host Marriott Services (HMS) through an agreement with the State of Delaware and provides the same services to the service plaza owned by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (which includes the Garden State Parkway) and the South Jersey Transportation Authority (for the Atlantic City Expressway).

Interchanges

Prior to 1982, the Delaware Turnpike shared an exit numbering system with that of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway in Maryland, which has since become a non-toll highway (except at the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge, in which a one-way toll [northbound] is still charged). The exit numbers adopted after 1982 are similar to those used on most Northeastern Interstate highways, and unlike the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway (Delaware Route 1), are numbered sequentially. A median service area with several gas stations and restaurants exists between exits 1 & 3. Also, ramp tolls existed on Exits 1, 3, and 4 (on ramps exiting southbound or entering northbound), but were removed in 1976 (the only evidence of their existence are straight, wide sections on these ramps). There are talks on reinstating the ramp tolls at Exits 1 and 3 in the future to pay for a major upgrade project at Exit 4 to replace the current "classic cloverleaf" interchange with that using high-speed ramps, along with widening the highway between Exit-4 and the I-295 junction with an additional lane in each direction.

There is no Exit-2. That never-built exit was to have connected to either a new U.S. Route 301 bypass around Newark that would have allowed U.S. Rt. 301 to connect with U.S. Route 1 (its parent highway) in Pennsylvania or the proposed Pike Creek Expressway.

County	Municipality	Mile	#	Destinations	Notes
Southern terminus of Delaware Turnpike Interstate 95 continues from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway in Maryland
New Castle	Newark	.54	Toll Plaza: $4.00
	Newark	2.34	1
	Christiana	5.10		Delaware House Service Area	Left exit; located in center median
		6.63	3
		7.89	4A	, Mall Road
		8.13	4B
	Newport	10.56	5A	, New Castle County Airport
		11.50	5B
		11.75		, Philadelphia	North end of I-95 overlap South end of I-295 overlap
	Farnhurst	1.93		, New Castle Airport	milepost reflects distance of I-295 measured by Delaware River and Bay Authority
	Farnhurst	1.93
	Northern terminus of Delaware Turnpike I-295 and US 40 continue toward Delaware Memorial Bridge and New Jersey Turnpike