New Hampshire Route 18 is a

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 ...

in northwestern

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, 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 t ...

. It is a local road serving

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

, and

Littleton, New Hampshire Littleton is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,005 at the 2020 census. Situated at the northern edge of the White Mountains, Littleton is bounded on the northwest by the Connecticut River. The main vil ...

, which I-93 bypasses. Its northern extension, Vermont Route 18, continues northward from the

Connecticut River The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...

to St. Johnsbury, Vermont. NH 18 closely parallels I-93 for its entire length and has several interchanges with the Interstate highway.

Route description

NH 18 begins as a spur of

I-93 Interstate 93 (I-93) is an Interstate Highway in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the United States. Spanning approximately along a north–south axis, it is one of three primary Interstate Highways ...

(the Franconia Notch Parkway) at the height of land in

Franconia Notch Franconia Notch (elev. ) is a major mountain pass through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Dominated by Cannon Mountain to the west and Mount Lafayette to the east, it lies principally within Franconia Notch State Park and is traversed by ...

. (

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 ...

is overlapped with I-93 on the Parkway.) NH 18 proceeds to the northwest, intersecting NH 141 and NH 142, near its interchange with I-93. In downtown

, NH 18 joins with NH 116 and meets the eastern end of NH 117 before leaving town and crossing into

. NH 18 has two interchanges with I-93 in Bethlehem, joining U.S. Route 302 westbound at the second one (US 302 east provides access to downtown). The highway crosses into Littleton, splitting with NH 116 in the center of town. Just west of downtown, US 302 splits from NH 18 as well. (This intersection is signed as the northern terminus of NH 10, although this designation officially ends much further south.) Northwest of town, NH 18 joins NH 135 near another interchange with I-93. The two routes have a direct interchange with I-93 near the

at exit 44 (I-93's last exit in New Hampshire). NH 135 splits off NH 18 before it crosses the river into

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

(along with I-93 to its west) and becomes VT 18.

History

Route 18 was originally part of the

Theodore Roosevelt International Highway The Theodore Roosevelt International Highway was a transcontinental North American highway, from the era of the auto trails, through the United States and Canada that ran from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. Its length was about . Route desc ...

, a transcontinental

auto trail The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the United States and Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in ...

organized in 1919 running from

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, to

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

, via

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Within New Hampshire, the Roosevelt Highway ran from Littleton to Conway using modern New Hampshire Route 18 from the

to downtown Littleton, then modern U.S. Route 302 from Littleton to the

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

line. 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 to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

states adopted the

New England road marking system , , , , , 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. ...

, assigning route numbers to the main through routes in the region.Motor Sign Uniformity, ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', April 16, 1922 The Roosevelt Highway routing in New Hampshire was assigned New England Route 18.''Official Automobile Blue Book, Vol. 1'', 1926 edition, (Automobile Blue Books Inc., Chicago, 1926). Map indicated the routing of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway by "T" markers along the route. In 1926, the New England road marking system was supplanted by the national

United States Numbered 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 ...

. Route 18 was transferred to state highway systems in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In 1935, U.S. Route 302 was designated between

Montpelier, Vermont Montpelier () is the capital city of the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Washington County. The site of Vermont's state government, it is the least populous state capital in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population w ...

and Portland, Maine, utilizing Route 18 east of Littleton to Portland. As a result, Route 18 was truncated on the overlapped roadways and later extended along other roads to Franconia.

Junction list

Road names along route

NH Route 18 uses the following local road names: ;Franconia *Profile Road *Main Street ;Bethlehem *Profile Road/Old Franconia Road *Main Street/Dartmouth College Road ;Littleton *Bethlehem Road *Cottage Street *Main Street *St. Johnsbury Road

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Hampshire Route 018 018 Transportation in Grafton County, New Hampshire