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From PhillyRoads.com's history of The Blue Route:
In 1970, the newly organized Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation (PennDOT)
completed a 2.5-mile-long section of the "Blue Route"
through Broomall and Bryn Mawr, and
four years later, completed a 1.5-mile-long section through
Radnor. However, the two
unopened sections of six-lane highway did not connect to other
highways or local streets.
For nearly two decades, no traffic - save for the occasional
highway engineer, bicyclist
or drag racer - had used the highway. One section had even been
used as a parking lot for
a nearby golf tournament.
Finally, on December 16, 1992, more than six decades of planning,
controversy and
construction had come to an end with the completion of the
Plymouth Meeting extension and
interchange. (note:
The Philadelphia Inquirer headline the following day read "A
Red-Ribbon Day Opens the
Blue Route All the Way".)
One of the last Interstate highways to be completed nationwide,
I-476 was constructed at a cost of $600 million, or fifteen times
the original 1957 estimate.
Nearly 375 families were displaced for construction of the
Mid-County Expressway.
1956 Planning Map showing RED and YELLOW (north), BLUE (center) and GREEN (south) options for the highway, from "Interstate 476, Mid-County Expressway from I-76 to I-95: Administrative Action Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Section 4(f) Statement," Federal Highway Administration and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, pub. 1976. |