Editing Transportation in Boston (section)

=== Road infrastructure ===
[[File:Zakim Bridge from Museum of Science Roof - 2014-02-09.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Lechmere Viaduct]] and [[Zakim Bridge]]]]
Except for the [[Back Bay, Boston|Back Bay]] and part of the South Boston neighborhoods, Boston has no [[street grid]]. The City of Boston, composed of many smaller towns annexed over the years, retained most of the pre-existing street names, resulting in many duplicates throughout the city.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}

Expressways and freeways in and around Greater Boston are laid out with two circumferential expressways:  [[Interstate 495 in Massachusetts|Interstate 495]] and [[Massachusetts Route 128|Route 128]].  The circumferential routes are intersected by several radial highways, including:

* [[Interstate 93]] (the Northern/Southeast Expressway), which extends north of the city into [[New Hampshire]], and southward to the [[Braintree Split]],
* [[Interstate 90]] (the Massachusetts Turnpike), connecting Boston with [[Worcester, Massachusetts|Worcester]] and [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]],
* [[United States Route 1]] (the Northeast Expressway/Newburyport Turnpike), crossing the [[Tobin Bridge]] and eventually serving [[Newburyport, Massachusetts|Newburyport]],
* [[Storrow Drive]], an unnumbered high-speed parkway along the [[Charles River]] connecting downtown Boston with the Route 2 corridor,
* [[U.S. Route 20]], a route running from Kenmore Square to Newport, Oregon — although it is not an expressway.
* [[Massachusetts Route 2]] (the Concord Turnpike/Alewife Brook Parkway), serving the northwestern suburbs including [[Lexington, Massachusetts|Lexington]], [[Concord, Massachusetts|Concord]] and [[Fitchburg, Massachusetts|Fitchburg]],
* [[Massachusetts Route 3]] (the Pilgrims Highway), connecting Boston with [[Cape Cod]],
* [[United States Route 3]] (the Northwest Expressway), a functionally separate highway serving [[Lowell, Massachusetts|Lowell]], [[Burlington, Massachusetts|Burlington]] and other suburbs in between Route 2 and I-93,
* [[Massachusetts Route 24]], serving the interior southern suburbs, including [[Brockton, Massachusetts|Brockton]], [[Taunton, Massachusetts|Taunton]] and [[Fall River, Massachusetts|Fall River]] 
* and [[Interstate 95]], indirectly connecting Boston with [[Rhode Island]] via I-93.

By the early 1990s, traffic on the elevated downtown portions of I-93 and Route 1 (the Central Artery) was 190,000 vehicles per day, with an accident rate four times the national average for urban interstates. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper for six to eight hours per day, with projections of traffic jams doubling by 2010.  Also, the elevated structure itself was decaying, after more than a half century of continuous use.  For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, driving in Boston was disrupted by the [[Big Dig]], the most expensive (roughly $14 billion) road project in the history of the US.

After more than 15 years of disruption, The Big Dig, along with other highway projects, provided less than 10 years of relief before congestion returned to the levels seen in "prerecession 2005, when the Big Dig was almost complete and marketed as the solution to gridlock for commuters ... analyses would conclude that the added capacity attracted more drivers, and pushed the traffic bottlenecks farther into the suburbs."<ref>{{cite news|title=Boston commute is as congested as it was 10 years ago|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/2015/09/17/zocommute/6oAfphVXJRcUJYM4RAFTWK/story.html"|author=Katheleen Conti|work=Boston Globe| date=September 17, 2015}}</ref> However even without the big dig the raised road was structurally deficient and needed rebuilding or replacement.

Boston remains one of the most congested metropolitan areas in the US.  The complex and still-changing road network, with many one-way streets and time-based traffic restrictions, has led many Boston travelers to consider an up-to-date [[GPS navigation]] map system a necessity.