Route 99 is a north–south

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

metropolitan Boston Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern ar ...

, leading from the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown through the northern suburbs of Everett, Malden, and Melrose, and terminating in Saugus at

U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making i ...

(US 1).

Route description

Route 99 begins where North Washington Street becomes New Rutherford Avenue on the north side of the

Charlestown Bridge The Charlestown Bridge, officially named the North Washington Street Bridge, is located in Boston and spans the Charles River. As the river's easternmost crossing, the bridge connects the neighborhoods of Charlestown and the North End. Comple ...

. This occurs at the intersection with Chelsea Street, situated above the northbound tunnel of

. Route 99 travels as a limited access highway through Charlestown along New Rutherford Avenue, intersecting with ramps for U.S. Route 1 and passing under the Gilmore Bridge that connects Charlestown to

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

. New Rutherford Avenue becomes Rutherford Avenue and the route continues along it, until the route splits off into an underpass below

Sullivan Square Sullivan Square is a traffic circle located at the north end of the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after James Sullivan, an early 19th-century Governor of Massachusetts. Sullivan Square station on the MBTA Orange ...

, where it turns northeastward. The route emerges to join Alford Street and crosses the Alford Street Bridge over the

Mystic River The Mystic River is a riverU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 in Massachusetts, in the United States. In Massachusett, means "large estuary," alluding to t ...

. After passing through a small strip of Charlestown on the east banks of the river, the route enters Everett, loses its expressway features and limited-access status, and becomes Broadway. From Everett, the route crosses through Sweetser Circle (the intersection with Route 16 and

Revere Beach Parkway Revere Beach Parkway is a historic parkway in the suburbs immediately north of Boston, Massachusetts. It begins at Wellington Circle in Medford, where the road leading to the west is Mystic Valley Parkway, and the north–south road is the Fe ...

) and continues northeastward into the city of Malden, where it intersects Route 60. The route continues on through a short () corner of Melrose before entering Saugus. Once in Saugus the route terminates at ramps leading to U.S. Route 1.

History

Prior to 1971, the portion north of the interchange with the Revere Beach Parkway (current Route 16, previously US Route 1 & MA Route 1A) was originally part of

. The stretch south of the interchange to the Charlestown Bridge originally had no known route number assigned to it. When it became designated as Route 99 circa 1971, its southern terminus was on the

, but this was moved to its present location following the

Big Dig The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project), commonly known as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93 (I-93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile (2.4& ...

. Sweetser Circle has been the site of numerous major accidents, including a gas tanker rollover early on December 5, 2007 that resulted in spilling, igniting and destroying 21 vehicles and two large multi-family homes.

Major intersections

References

External links

* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060425113000/http://massroads.com/?page=sullivan_sq_viaduct , date=April 25, 2006 , title=Sullivan Square Viaduct - Photos related to renovation of Route 99 in Charlestown 099 Malden, Massachusetts Melrose, Massachusetts