Portal:Washington Roads/Selected article
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Contents
Article 1
U.S. Route 12 (US 12) is a major east-west U.S. Highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan. It spans 403.80 miles (649.85 km) across the state of Washington, and is the only numbered highway to span the entire state from west to east, starting near the Pacific Ocean, and crossing the Idaho state line near Clarkston. It crosses the Cascade Range over White Pass, south of Mount Rainier National Park. Portions of it are concurrent with Interstate 5 (I-5) and Interstate 82 (I-82), although the majority of the route does not parallel any Interstate Highway. Although US 12 was not extended into Washington until 1967, portions of it have been part of Washington's state highway system since as early as 1905.
Article 2
State Route 22 (SR 22) is a 35.84-mile (57.68 km) long state highway spanning Yakima and Benton counties in the US state of Washington. Existing since at least 1937, the highway serves to connect several small communities that have been bypassed by Interstate 82 (I-82) / U.S. Route 12 (US 12). Except for the section through Toppenish and the southeastern bypass of Prosser, the highway is lightly traveled passing mainly through rural farmland. The highway parallels a BNSF Railway line for a majority of its route, with the rail line predating the highway by at least 27 years. Three digit highway numbers in Washington indicate auxiliary routes of their parent route, giving SR 22 five auxiliary routes: SR 220, SR 221, SR 223, SR 224, and SR 225. SR 220 was decommissioned during the 1991 legislative session, and is no longer maintained by the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Article 3
State Route 339 (SR 339) is an 8.5-nautical-mile (9.8 mi; 15.7 km) long ferry route designated as a state highway in the U.S. state of Washington. It connects Vashon Island's Vashon Heights ferry terminal to downtown Seattle's Pier 50, via a passenger-only ferry, the MV Skagit. The ferry is financed by the King County Ferry District (KCFD) and tolls collected at Pier 50. Despite being part of the KCFD, the ferry is operated by Washington State Ferries (WSF). SR 339 is one of only four ferry routes providing access to and from Vashon Island, and has the lowest annual average ridership of the four routes. The state of Washington took over the operation of the ferry route in 1951, and designated it SR 339 in 1994.
Article 4
Interstate 705 (abbreviated I-705, also known as the Tacoma Spur) is a short Interstate Highway spur route of Interstate 5 located entirely within Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington, United States. I-705 serves as the connector between Interstate 5, Downtown Tacoma, Tacoma's waterfront, North Tacoma, and the Tacoma Dome. I-705 was the last portion of the Interstate Highway System to be constructed in Washington, and has been disparagingly referred to as "the road to nowhere". In 2009, WSDOT calculated that as few as 27,000 cars used the spur at the continuation point from SR 7, and as many as 71,000 cars between the onramp from I-5 and SR 509. The Chihuly Bridge of Glass passes over the freeway, linking the Museum of Glass on the shorefront to downtown Tacoma.
Article 5
State Route 904 (SR 904, named the Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson Memorial Highway) is a 16.96-mile (27.29 km) long state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, located entirely in Spokane County. The route starts at an interchange with Interstate 90 (I-90) and U.S. Route 395 (US 395) in Tyler and travels to Cheney, serving the Eastern Washington University, before ending at I-90 and US 395 in Four Lakes. The roadway, named First Street in Downtown Cheney, is paralleled by three rail lines, a BNSF Railway route that carries Amtrak's Empire Builder, a Union Pacific route and the Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad. After the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry during STS-107 in 2003, killing all seven passengers, the road was renamed the Lt. Col. Michael P. Anderson Memorial Highway after one of the passengers that was raised in Cheney.
Article 6
The Bay Freeway, also referred to as the Mercer Street Connection, was a proposed elevated freeway in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, replacing 0.7 miles (1.1 km) of Mercer Street between Interstate 5 (I-5) and Aurora Avenue North at the Seattle Center. Planning for the freeway began in 1954, with the proposal for a freeway from Elliott Bay to the Central Freeway, later I-5, via Broad and Mercer streets added to the city's comprehensive plan in 1957. Funded by a bond measure passed by Seattle voters in 1960, plans for the newly christened and elevated Bay Freeway to serve a multi-purpose stadium at the Seattle Center were opposed by citizens groups at public hearings in 1967, forcing the Seattle Engineering Department to consider other designs. After determining that a cut-and-cover tunnel would not be feasible, a second series of public hearings were held in 1970, leading to widespread controversy and a civil suit launched in opposition to the freeway. The lawsuit ended in November 1971, with King County Superior Court Judge Solie M. Ringold ruling that it was a major deviation from the voter-approved 1960 plan, forcing a referendum to continue on with the project. On February 8, 1972, the Bay Freeway project was rejected by a 10,000-vote margin in a municipal referendum, alongside the repeal of the R.H. Thomson Expressway, postponing congestion relief on Mercer Street until the Mercer Corridor Project in 2012.
Article 7
State Route 3 (SR 3) is a 59.81-mile-long (96.25 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, serving the Kitsap Peninsula in Mason and Kitsap counties. The highway begins at U.S. Route 101 (US 101) south of Shelton and travels northeast onto the Kitsap Peninsula through Belfair to Gorst, where it intersects SR 16 and begins its freeway. SR 3 travels west of Bremerton, Silverdale and Poulsbo before it terminates at the eastern end of the Hood Canal Bridge, signed as SR 104. The highway is designated as a Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) corridor under the National Highway System as the main thoroughfare connecting both parts of Naval Base Kitsap and is also part of the Highways of Statewide Significance program.
Article 8
U.S. Route 2 (US 2) is a component of the United States Numbered Highway System that connects the city of Everett in the U.S. state of Washington to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, with a separate segment that runs from Rouses Point, New York, to Houlton, Maine. Within Washington, the highway travels on a 326.36-mile-long (525.23 km) route that connects the western and eastern regions of the state as a part of the state highway system and the National Highway System. US 2 forms parts of two National Scenic Byways, the Stevens Pass Greenway from Monroe to Cashmere and the Coulee Corridor Scenic Byway near Coulee City, and an All-American Road named the International Selkirk Loop within Newport.
Article 9
State Route 16 (SR 16) is a 27.16-mile-long (43.71 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, connecting Pierce and Kitsap counties. The highway, signed as east–west, begins at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Tacoma and travels through the city as a freeway towards the Tacoma Narrows. SR 16 crosses the narrows onto the Kitsap Peninsula on the partially tolled Tacoma Narrows Bridge and continues through Gig Harbor and Port Orchard before the freeway ends in Gorst. The designation ends at an intersection with SR 3 southwest of the beginning of its freeway through Bremerton and Poulsbo. SR 16 is designated as a Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) corridor within the National Highway System as the main thoroughfare connecting Tacoma to Naval Base Kitsap and a part of the Highways of Statewide Significance program.
Article 10
State Route 305 (SR 305) is a 13.50-mile-long (21.73 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, primarily serving Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County and connecting it to Seattle in King County via the Seattle–Winslow Ferry. The highway travels north through Bainbridge Island and leaves the island on the Agate Pass Bridge into the Kitsap Peninsula. SR 305 continues northwest through Poulsbo, intersecting SR 307 and ending at the SR 3 freeway. The highway was created during the 1964 highway renumbering and was preceded by Secondary State Highway 21A (SSH 21A), established in 1937. The ferry, part of the highway since 1994, is served by the Jumbo Mark II class MV Tacoma and MV Wenatchee and operates on a 35-minute crossing time.
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