Route 28 is a nominally south–north
state highway in the U.S. state of
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
, running from the town of
Eastham via
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
to the
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...
state line in
Methuen. Following the route from its nominally southern end, Route 28 initially heads south to the town of
Chatham then turns west to follow along the south shore of Cape Cod. In
Falmouth, Route 28 turns north and continues through the western part of
Plymouth County and the eastern part of
Norfolk County; it then passes through downtown Boston before heading north via
Lawrence
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
to the New Hampshire state line, where it continues as
New Hampshire Route 28.
Route 28 was originally formed as a
New England interstate route
,
,
,
,
,
The New England road marking system was a regional system of marked numbered routes in the six-state region of New England in the United States. The routes were marked by a yellow rectangular sign with black numbers and border. M ...
established in 1922 to run from
Buzzards Bay
Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles (45 kilometers) long by 8 miles (12 kilometers) wide. It is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since ...
to New Hampshire. The route itself was overlaid on several early turnpike roads constructed in the early 19th century. Except for an extension into Cape Cod in 1926, the overall highway layout and routing is largely unchanged from its original design. Route 28 has been realigned in several places when newer, higher quality roads were built. At a length of nearly , Route 28 is the longest state numbered highway in Massachusetts, and the second longest highway, behind
U.S. Route 20
U.S. Route 20 or U.S. Highway 20 (US 20) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway that stretches from the Pacific Northwest east to New England. The "0" in its route number indicates that US 20 is a major coast-to-coast route. S ...
.
Route 28 is supplanted by
interstate highways throughout most of the state, and is used mainly as a secondary and local highway. Throughout Cape Cod, particularly in
Hyannis and
Yarmouth, it passes through heavy development and is the primary navigation route along the south side of the Cape. This causes congestion and gridlock, especially during the summer months, when traffic is at its heaviest.
Route description
![McGrath Highway approaching I-93, 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/McGrath_Highway_approaching_I-93%2C_2008.jpg)
Route 28 is a mostly a two-lane undivided highway, with several divided, four-lane sections in populated areas as well as two short freeway sections. The south end of Route 28 is at the Orleans Rotary just north of the
Orleans-
Eastham town line, where it intersects with
U.S. Route 6
U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...
and
Route 6A. Northbound Route 28 initially heads south towards the town of
Chatham before turning west to run along the south shore of
Cape Cod
Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
until
Falmouth. From there, Route 28 turns north, running for several miles along a freeway, later downgrading to a four-lane divided surface arterial. Route 28 crosses the
Cape Cod Canal via the
Bourne Bridge
The Bourne Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts carries Route 28 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts. It won the American Institute of Steel Construction's Class "A" Award of Merit as the "Most Beautiful ...
, from which it then overlaps with U.S. Route 6 as a two-lane highway until
Wareham. North of Wareham, Route 28 heads north towards
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
passing through the southern suburbs of the city, including
Middleborough
Middleborough (frequently written as Middleboro) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,245 at the 2020 census.
History
The town was first settled by Europeans in 1661 as Nemasket, later changed to M ...
,
Bridgewater,
Brockton, and
Randolph. After crossing
Interstate 93, Route 28 then goes through the
Blue Hills Reservation
Blue Hills Reservation is a state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts in the United States. Managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, it covers parts of Milton, Quincy, Braintree, Canton, Randolph, and Dedh ...
and
Milton before crossing into Boston over the
Neponset River
The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...
. 28 starts on Blue Hill Avenue and transfers to Seaver Street which turns into Columbus Avenue. It then transfers to Tremont St, Melnea Cass Blvd, and back into Columbus Avenue. In Boston proper, northbound Route 28 uses Columbus Avenue, Stuart Street,
Charles Street South, and
Beacon Street
Beacon Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts and its western suburbs Brookline and Newton. It passes through many of Boston's central and western neighborhoods, including Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway–Kenmore, the Boston U ...
, then shifts via the David G. Mugar Way to
Embankment Road
Storrow Drive, officially James Jackson Storrow Memorial Drive, is a major crosstown parkway in Boston, Massachusetts, running east–west along the southern bank of the Charles River. It is restricted to cars; trucks and buses are not per ...
. As Stuart Street and Charles Street South are both
one way, the southbound routing runs west on Beacon Street from Mugar Way to Clarendon Street, where it turns south, meets routes 2 and 9, until it reaches Columbus Avenue. At the junction with the
Longfellow Bridge
The Longfellow Bridge is a steel rib arch bridge spanning the Charles River to connect Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood with the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bridge carries Massachusetts Route 3, US Route 3, the MBTA Re ...
, Route 28 is joined briefly by
Route 3 on a
wrong-way concurrency
A concurrency in a road network is an instance of one physical roadway bearing two or more different route numbers. When two roadways share the same right-of-way, it is sometimes called a common section or commons. Other terminology for a concurr ...
until the
Charles River Dam Bridge
The Charles River Dam Bridge, officially the Craigie Bridge, also called Craigie's Bridge or the Canal Bridge, is a six-lane bascule bridge across the Charles River in the West End neighborhood of Boston. The bridge, maintained by the Massachus ...
. Route 28 crosses the
Charles River
The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...
on the Charles River Dam Bridge into
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, 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. Cam ...
. After crossing the river, Route 28 runs along the six-lane divided highway known as Monsignor O'Brien Highway (in Cambridge) and McGrath Highway (in
Somerville) to connect to the
Fellsway. Roughly half of the McGrath Highway is an elevated freeway through East Somerville, while being supplemented by at-grade frontage roads. The four-lane Fellsway crosses 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 ...
into
Medford. Route 28 continues north through the
Middlesex Fells Reservation
Middlesex Fells Reservation, often referred to simply as the Fells, is a public recreation area covering more than in Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester, Massachusetts. The state park surrounds two inactive reservoirs, S ...
and the northern suburbs of Boston, including
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...
,
Andover
Andover may refer to:
Places Australia
*Andover, Tasmania
Canada
* Andover Parish, New Brunswick
* Perth-Andover, New Brunswick
United Kingdom
* Andover, Hampshire, England
** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station
United States
* Andove ...
,
Lawrence
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
(crossing the
Merrimack River
The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into M ...
via the O'Leary Bridge), and
Methuen, from which it then crosses into the state of
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...
.
History
Early turnpikes
Many of the roads leading from Boston to the surrounding towns were first laid out as privately owned and operated
turnpikes at the beginning of the 19th century. One of the roads used by modern Route 28 leading from the northern suburbs of Boston in the direction of
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644.
Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Ha ...
was the Andover and Medford Turnpike. The turnpike corporation was chartered in June 1805 and had authority to build from the marketplace in Medford to a point in the town of Andover. A committee of Middlesex County freeholders established the location of the road in 1806, and the road was constructed soon after at a cost of almost $49,000 for a length of about six miles, being built only as far north as the Reading-Stoneham town line, where a branch of the
Essex Turnpike continued the road to Andover and the state of New Hampshire. An act by the General Court in February 1807 allowed the Andover and Medford company to maintain a toll gate at the Essex-Middlesex county line jointly with the Essex Turnpike corporation. The road continued collecting tolls until January 1836 when Middlesex county commissioners declared the road a public road and awarded the company $3,000 as compensation.
In March 1804, another turnpike corporation, the Blue Hill Turnpike Corporation, was chartered with authority to lay out an improved road from the meeting house in the town of Randolph, through the Blue Hills Reservation, to a point in the town of Milton. A second act in June 1805 allowed for a slight alteration in the terminus in Milton. The road cost approximately $78,300 to build the eight miles from Randolph Center to Milton Lower Mills in 1805. The turnpike used what is now North Main Street in Randolph and Randolph Avenue in Milton. The road from Milton Lower Mills into Boston was continued by the
Dorchester Turnpike. In 1815, the Blue Hills Turnpike company was allowed to impose a fine on any persons who tried to avoid paying the tolls. The turnpike was discontinued in 1848, when the Norfolk county commissioners declared the road as a public highway. The company reported an average net income of 1-2 per cent per year during its existence.
Two other sections of modern Route 28 were also parts of early turnpikes. The section between Middleborough and Bridgewater, where Route 28 overlaps with Route 18, was part of the
New Bedford and Bridgewater Turnpike
Massachusetts Route 18 is a north–south state highway in Southeastern Massachusetts. Beginning in the city of New Bedford, it runs as a freeway for approximately , continuing as a surface street until it reaches Weymouth.
The segment of Ro ...
. The portion along Blue Hill Avenue, between the village of Mattapan and Franklin Park Zoo, was the northern half of the
Brush Hill Turnpike (the lower half is modern Route 138). In Cape Cod, most travel was by water and roads were not improved until late in the 19th century.
Route numbering and original alignment
In 1922, the
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
states adopted a region-wide
road marking system. Primary routes were to be assigned route numbers between 1 and 99 and marked as black numerals on yellow bands painted on poles along the route. The route running from
Wareham, Massachusetts
Wareham ( ) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town had a population of 23,303.
History
Wareham was first settled in 1678 by Europeans as part of the towns of Plymouth and Rochester. It was ...
and
Ossipee, New Hampshire
Ossipee is a town in Carroll County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 4,372 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Carroll County. Ossipee, which includes several villages, is a resort area and home to part of Pine River S ...
via
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
and
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644.
Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Ha ...
was designated as
New England Route 28. Route 28 utilized the main road between Wareham and Middleborough (Wareham Street), from which it then traveled along Everett Street and Summer Street until the center of Bridgewater. From Bridgewater, Route 28 used the main road to Brockton (Main Street). In Brockton, Route 28 shifted slightly west to use Warren Avenue (between Clifton and Pleasant streets) and North Main Street (to the town of Avon). From Randolph, it then went along the alignment of the old Blue Hill Turnpike but left the turnpike alignment before reaching Milton Village, shifting westward to a section of the Brush Hill Turnpike (Blue Hill Avenue) in Mattapan. In Mattapan, it joined with
New England Route 6 (modern
Route 203) and went west along Morton Street and the
Arborway
Arborway (also known as The Arborway) consists of a four-lane, divided parkway and a two lane residential street in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s as the south most ...
until they met with
New England 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 ...
at Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.
The triple-concurrency of Routes 1, 6, and 28 continued through the
Emerald Necklace
The Emerald Necklace consists of a chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and gets its name from the way the planned chain appear ...
following the
Jamaicaway
Jamaicaway (also known as The Jamaicaway) is a four-lane, undivided parkway in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts near the border of Brookline.
History
Jamaicaway was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as part of Emeral ...
, the
Riverway
Riverway, also referred to as "the Riverway," is a parkway in Boston, Massachusetts. The parkway is a link in the Emerald Necklace system of parks and parkways designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s. Starting at the Landmark Center end ...
, and a short section of
Boylston Street to Charlesgate, and then crossed the Charles River using the
Harvard Bridge
The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the MIT Bridge, the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, and the "Mass. Ave." Bridge) is a steel haunched girder bridge carrying Massachusetts Avenue ( Route 2A) over the Charles River and connecting Back Bay, ...
. After crossing the river, Route 6 split off to the west along
Memorial Drive, while Routes 1 and 28 followed local streets in Cambridge and Somerville (Windsor Avenue, Webster Avenue, Walnut Street) to reach the
Fellsway. The two routes crossed the Mystic River on the Fellsway and split at the intersection with the Revere Beach Parkway. From there, Route 28 continued along the Fellsway towards Medford Center. North of Medford, Route 28 utilized the alignment of the old Andover and Medford Turnpike through the Middlesex Fells Reservation into Reading. It then continued on the Andover branch of the old Essex Turnpike through Andover and Lawrence to the New Hampshire state line.
The route in Cape Cod was also assigned in 1922 as a primary New England route. The road from Bourne to Orleans along the south shore of the Cape was the easternmost section of
New England Route 3
U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War Grand Army of the Republic, veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast fr ...
.
At the end of 1926, the
U.S. Highway system
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these h ...
was established and several of the primary New England routes were redesignated as U.S. routes. New England Route 28 was not renumbered but New England Route 1 became U.S. Route 1; New England Route 6 became
U.S. Route 3
U.S. Route 3 (US 3) is a United States highway running from Cambridge, Massachusetts, through New Hampshire, to the Canada–US border near Third Connecticut Lake, where it connects to Quebec Route 257.
Massachusetts Route 3 connects to ...
north of Boston and mostly
State Route 3 south of Boston; and New England Route 3 became mostly U.S. Route 6. In Cape Cod, however, this was not the case. Former New England Route 3 was assigned as a southern extension of Route 28, while former New England Route 6 was assigned as an eastern extension of U.S. Route 6.
Realignments
Driving the entire length from
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...
to
Orleans, the highway layout and design has not changed much since its construction and designation in the early 20th century. The major exceptions are in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, where some of the original routing was changed over the years, and on the Cape, where a
freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...
section between
Falmouth and
Bourne was completed in the mid-1960s.
In 1928, several projects to relieve congestion in the Boston area were completed. One of these was the opening of the
Boston University Bridge
The Boston University Bridge, originally the Cottage Farm Bridge and commonly referred to as the BU Bridge, is a steel truss through arch bridge with a suspended deck carrying Route 2 over the Charles River, connecting the Boston University ca ...
(at the time known as Cottage Farm Bridge). The opening of this new bridge over the Charles River resulted in the relocation of the triple concurrency of US 1, US 3, and Route 28 onto it. The routes left the Riverway using Park Drive and Mountfort Street (both now designated as part of
Route 2) to reach the bridge. In Cambridge and Somerville, a new boulevard known as the Northern Artery was built over part of Somerville Avenue and Medford Street, continuing north on a new roadway cutting across Somerville to Fellsway East, which was also paved over by the new Northern Artery. The Northern Artery provided a high speed connection between the Charles River and the Mystic River. US 1 and Route 28 were relocated off of local streets in Cambridge and Somerville onto the Northern Artery when it opened to traffic. From the Boston University Bridge, the two routes used Memorial Drive and Cambridge Parkway to reach the Northern Artery. The Northern Artery was later renamed as the Monsignor O'Brien Highway in Cambridge and the McGrath Highway in Somerville.
In the mid-1930s, the city of Boston marked several alternate routes of Routes 1, 9, 28, and 37 that ran through the downtown area. Route C28 left mainline Route 28 by continuing north into Dorchester along Blue Hill Avenue instead of turning west onto Morton Street with Route 3. Just beyond the Franklin Zoo, C28 turned west along Seaver Street, continuing through Roxbury along Columbus Avenue. C28 then followed Columbus Avenue up to Charles Street at the Boston Common, turning north along Charles Street to Cambridge Street, then crossing the Charles River using the
Longfellow Bridge
The Longfellow Bridge is a steel rib arch bridge spanning the Charles River to connect Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood with the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bridge carries Massachusetts Route 3, US Route 3, the MBTA Re ...
. C28 met back with mainline Route 28 at Memorial Drive in Cambridge. In 1971, the Boston 'C' routes were retired and mainline Route 28 was relocated onto the former C28 alignment through downtown Boston. Route 28 was also later shifted to use its modern alignment along Embankment Road and the Charles River Dam Bridge.
![McCarthy Overpass tunnel, December 2021](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/McCarthy_Overpass_tunnel%2C_December_2021.jpg)
The McCarthy Overpass, which carries Route 28 as McGrath Highway through part of Somerville, was built in the early 1950s, before Interstate 93. The parallel Northern Expressway segment connecting Medford (where I-93 ended in 1963) and the
Central Artery
The Central Artery (officially the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway) is a section of freeway in downtown Boston, Massachusetts; it is designated as Interstate 93, US 1 and Route 3.
The original Artery, constructed in the 1950s, was named aft ...
was constructed between 1965 and 1973. The southbound off-ramp to Somerville Avenue, and a northbound "tunnel" under the overpass north of Somerville Avenue, were closed on April 11, 2016.
In 1935, a new bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, the Bourne Bridge, was opened to traffic, replacing an earlier drawbridge at the same location. Between 1941 and 1943, the road south of the Bourne Bridge was widened to a four-lane, divided highway to the Pocasset Rotary and renamed General MacArthur Boulevard. The Route 28 expressway in Falmouth opened to traffic in 1961. Route 28 was relocated to the new expressway soon after, with the former surface alignment being renumbered to Route 28A.
Around 1940, several minor realignments had also taken place in Brockton, Bridgewater, and Middleborough. In Brockton, Route 28 followed Montello Street instead of Warren Avenue. South of Bridgewater, Route 28 was relocated onto an overlap with Route 18 until West Grove Street. Route 28 then followed West Grove Street and East Grove Street, bypassing Middleborough Center to the south. By 1951, a new bypass road in Buzzards Bay was completed and resulted in the relocation of Routes 6 and 28 to the new roadway.
Route 28 itself is no longer utilized as a long distance through route because of the opening of several parallel expressways along the Route 28 corridor since the 1950s.
Interstate 93 serves the Route 28 corridor north of Boston, while the combination of
Route 24, the southern end of
Interstate 495, and
Route 25 serves the corridor south of Boston to the
Bourne Bridge
The Bourne Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts carries Route 28 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts. It won the American Institute of Steel Construction's Class "A" Award of Merit as the "Most Beautiful ...
. The construction of Route 25, in particular, resulted in a reconfiguration of the connection from the Bourne Corners traffic circle to the Route 25 expressway.
Major intersections
Route 28A
![Massachusetts Route 28A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Massachusetts_Route_28A.png)
Route 28A is a alternate route running from
Falmouth in the south to the village of
Pocasset in the north. Route 28A parallels the freeway section of Route 28 in the Upper Cape, providing a scenic alternative for travelers and direct access to the localities bypassed by the freeway. Route 28A begins and ends at Route 28 with an intermediate junction with Route 151.
The highway was part of Route 28 until paralleling General MacArthur Boulevard expressway opened to traffic in 1961.
;Major intersections
Miscellanea
* Directional signs on Route 28 on Cape Cod are continuously marked as north–south, which is confusing for unfamiliar drivers. One travelling on Route 28 southbound is actually going northeast from
Falmouth to
Mashpee, east from Mashpee to
Chatham, and north from Chatham to the
Orleans-
Eastham border. In fact, where
Route 39 hits Route 28 in South Orleans, the directions on Route 28 are unsigned, since otherwise a driver heading north on 39 North and wishing to continue north into Orleans Center might inadvertently follow 28 North south to Chatham.
* Route 28 passes through less than of
Brewster, but the signage on the road indicates a direct border between Harwich and Orleans.
* Route 28 traverses through the town of
Avon, geographically one of the ten smallest municipalities in Massachusetts, between Brockton and Randolph to the south and north, respectively, at roughly
mile marker
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to s ...
104. In spite of Avon's
diminutive size (Route 28 passes through Avon for only 1.55 mi/2.50 km), sections of Route 28 through the aforementioned town are also known as Memorial Drive, East Main Street, on which Avon's
Town Hall is located, and North Main Street.
* Route 28 running between
Interstate 93 in Randolph (wrong-way concurrency with
MA Route 128 officially until 1997) and Chickatawbut Road in Milton, to the south and north respectively, traverses through the city of
Quincy at approximately
mile marker
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to s ...
111. The short Quincy stretch is located entirely within the
Blue Hills Reservation
Blue Hills Reservation is a state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts in the United States. Managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, it covers parts of Milton, Quincy, Braintree, Canton, Randolph, and Dedh ...
and is completely
forested
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
, with no residential or commercial development. As is the case in Milton south of Reedsdale Road, the Quincy section of Route 28 is also officially known as Randolph Avenue.
[http://www.mappoint.msn.co.uk/(gjizobfu5rgyh1vssllwnrm1)/map.aspx?L=USA&C=42.20901%2c-71.06737&A=7.16667&P=, 42.20901%2c-71.06737, 1, Randolph+Ave%2c+Quincy%2c+MA+02169, L1, ]
* In West Yarmouth near Seaview Ave, Route 28 is incorrectly signed as US route 28 instead of Massachusetts Route 28. It is also incorrectly signed as US 28 in Dennis just after the Bass River Bridge.
aProposed MassDOT milepost exit numbers that were to be added to interchanges along the MA 28 expressway as part of its project to convert all the state's exit numbers to those based on milepost numbers starting in 2016.
However, this project has now been indefinitely postponed by MassDOT.
See also
*
Route 28 (New England)
,
,
,
,
,
The New England road marking system was a regional system of marked numbered routes in the six-state region of New England in the United States. The routes were marked by a yellow rectangular sign with black numbers and border ...
References
Further reading
* {{citation , url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/26/metro/pressley-somerville-officials-join-residents-rally-improved-mcgrath-highway-safety/ , title=Pressley, Somerville officials join residents to rally for improved McGrath Highway safety , author= Christine Mui , work=Boston Globe , date= May 26, 2021
028
Transportation in Barnstable County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Essex County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Transportation in Boston
Transportation in Harwich, Massachusetts
Transportation in Somerville, Massachusetts
1922 establishments in Massachusetts