Massachusetts Avenue (metropolitan Boston)

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Massachusetts Avenue (Boston)
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Massachusetts Avenue

Route information
Component
highways
East endColumbia Rd. In Boston
Location
CountryUnited States
StateMassachusetts
Highway system
Massachusetts Avenue near Beacon Street in Boston

Massachusetts Avenue (colloquially referred to as Mass Ave) is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts, and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. According to Boston magazine, "Its 16 miles of blacktop run from gritty industrial zones to verdant suburbia, homeless encampments, passing gentrified brownstones, college campuses and bustling commercial strips."[1]

Route

The street begins at

Minuteman National Historical Park
.

Extended route

The road, by the same name, continues northwest and west, through many different cities and towns. It largely parallels or joins Route 2 and Route 2A, all the way into central Massachusetts, with a few gaps at towns that have different names for the central road.

For much of its length, Massachusetts Avenue is a center of commercial activity, especially through the larger towns. Apartments, shops, and restaurants fill both sides of it, and there is a lot of pedestrian traffic.

A number of linear parks cut across various portions of Mass. Ave., including the

Cambridge Linear Park, Alewife Brook Reservation, and the Minuteman Bikeway
.

Towns and cities on the Massachusetts Avenue route

MIT, an important landmark in Cambridge

Notable buildings, institutions, and landmarks along the route

History

Massachusetts Avenue forms the commercial heart of Cambridge's Central Square.

Paul Revere's ride

On the night of April 18–19, 1775, Paul Revere rode his horse down a portion of this road, then known as the Great Road, on his "Midnight Ride", and William Dawes and Samuel Prescott also rode on portions of this road on their way to Concord. These travels were on the Cambridge side of the Charles River; the Harvard Bridge was not constructed until the 1880s.

Early names and evolution

Massachusetts Avenue was formed at the end of the nineteenth century from what were separate roads. In

Alewife Brook it follows what had been North Avenue since 1838, and prior to that the Road to Menotomy. In Arlington it follows the former Arlington Avenue, and in Lexington
it follows the former Main Street south of the Battle Green and the former Monument Street north of the Battle Green.

Mass transit

Massachusetts Avenue is served with direct connections for a number of the MBTA's bus and subway routes between Lexington and Boston.

Direct

17
,
stop on the Silver Line bus, and LexPress.[2][3]

a station along the Orange Line under the Mass Ave. name. An additional stop at Arlington Center was mooted during the 1980s Red Line extension but ultimately was not constructed.[4]

Two

Newmarket at the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester
.

See also

References

  1. ^ Leeds, Jared, The Mass Ave. Project, Boston magazine, November 2007, p.124
  2. ^ "> Schedules & Maps > Private Bus". MBTA. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  3. ^ "Lexington, Massachusetts:Lexpress Bus". Lexingtonma.gov. 2012-07-01. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  4. . Retrieved July 1, 2010. In contrast, the town of Arlington, concerned about traffic congestion, opposed the extension of the Red Line into its boundaries and its termination at Arlington Heights. As a result, the Red Line now terminates at Alewife, in North Cambridge.

Further reading

External links