The Sumner Tunnel is a road

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

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 ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, United States. It carries traffic under

Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States. History Since ...

in one direction, from

Logan International Airport General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...

and Route 1A in

East Boston East Boston, nicknamed Eastie, is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts annexed by the city of Boston in 1637. Neighboring communities include Winthrop, Revere, and Chelsea. It is separated from the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and do ...

. The tunnel originally deposited traffic at the west side of the North End, but with the completion of 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& ...

, it was modified to have two exits. One exit connects to

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 ...

northbound and downtown Boston (Government Center) near Haymarket Station. The other exit connects to

Storrow Drive 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 perm ...

and Nashua St., connecting

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 ...

via Route 28. Traffic headed for I-93 southbound and the

Massachusetts Turnpike The Massachusetts Turnpike (colloquially "Mass Pike" or "the Pike") is a toll highway in the US state of Massachusetts that is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The turnpike begins at the New York state li ...

(

I-90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...

) westbound is normally routed to the

Ted Williams Tunnel The Ted Williams Tunnel is a highway tunnel in Boston, Massachusetts. The third in the city to travel under Boston Harbor, with the Sumner Tunnel and the Callahan Tunnel, it carries the final segment of Interstate 90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) ...

History

The Sumner Tunnel was opened on June 30, 1934. It carried traffic in both directions until the opening of the parallel Callahan Tunnel in 1961. The Sumner Tunnel is named for

William H. Sumner William Hyslop Sumner (July 4, 1780 – October 24, 1861) was an American lawyer, soldier, and writer, and the son of Governor Increase Sumner. He graduated from Harvard College in 1799, and practiced law. He served as a general in the Massachuse ...

, the son of Governor

Increase Sumner Increase Sumner (November 27, 1746 – June 7, 1799) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Massachusetts. He was the fifth governor of Massachusetts, serving from 1797 to 1799. Trained as a lawyer, he served in the provisional go ...

. , a

toll Toll may refer to: Transportation * Toll (fee) a fee charged for the use of a road or waterway ** Road pricing, the modern practice of charging for road use ** Road toll (historic), the historic practice of charging for road use ** Shadow toll, ...

of $1.50 is charged for non-commercial two-axle vehicles with a Massachusetts

E-ZPass E-ZPass is an electronic toll collection system used on toll roads, toll bridges, and toll tunnels in the Eastern United States, Midwestern United States, and Southern United States. The E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG) consists of member agencie ...

, while non-Massachusetts E-ZPass holders are charged $1.75. Vehicles without E-ZPass are charged $2.05 through MassDOT's Pay by Plate MA program. For residents of certain Boston ZIP Codes, a discount is in effect using an E-ZPass transponder, costing $0.20. On November 14, 2008, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority voted in favor of a proposed toll hike which would double the toll to $7.00 for non-commercial vehicles (at the time, the toll was $3.50 in the southbound direction only). E-ZPass users would receive a $1.00 discount and commercial vehicles would end up having to pay $9.00. This vote was later rescinded following a vote approving a 1.25% sales tax increase. In 2016, cashless tolling systems were installed in both directions, entering the Sumner Tunnel and exiting the Callahan Tunnel as part of a plan to modernize toll collection in the Boston area. Shutdowns are planned for weekends starting June 2022, with a full shutdown for the summer of 2023 and intermittent closures into 2024, to allow a complete rehabilitation of the tunnel.‘It’s going to have a major impact’: Boston neighborhoods brace for Sumner Tunnel construction, closures
/ref> File:Sumner Tunnel.png, Showing the Sumner Tunnel (in red) File:Sumner Tunnel shield.jpg, An old shield for the Sumner Tunnel, with the Masspike hat. This shield is no longer used.

References

External links

Sumner Tunnel construction photographs, 1929-1933
University Archives and Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library,

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

{{Coord, 42, 22, 05, N, 71, 2, 47, W, type:landmark_region:US, display=title Boston Harbor Tunnels in Boston Toll tunnels in Massachusetts U.S. Route 1 Interstate 93 Tunnels completed in 1934 Road tunnels in Massachusetts 1934 establishments in Massachusetts

History

See also

References

External links