End of US highway 20 |
 |
|
1926-1940
|
1940-1941
|
1941-present
|
Summa
|
Summa
|
Summa
|
Claim to fame: US 20 may be the longest US route, and would then in fact be the longest highway of any classification in the U.S. So how long is it? And where is its midway point? Well, the answers are a little complicated (see this blog post and this one for the details).
|
|
Since the US routes were first commissioned, the east terminus of US 20 has always been in Boston, although its exact endpoint has changed over the years. US 20 comes into town on Brighton Avenue, which then becomes Commonwealth Avenue. Formerly this was the last eastbound marker...
|
Elbert, July 2006
|
|
...but in 2012 or 2013 it appears MassDoT re-signposted the routes in this part of town, and now the easternmost segment of US 20 has shields that are more MUTCD-compliant. As of 2014, the last eastbound marker was just past the BU Bridge:
|
Google Maps Street View, 2011 (gone by 2017)
|
|
Signage approaching Kenmore Square indicates the route at which US 20 terminates:
|
Google Maps Street View, 2014
|
Morrison, Oct. 2017
|
|
MA hwy. 2 approaches Commonwealth from the right, via Beacon Street. Here, where those two roads intersect, MA 2 switches over to Commonwealth, and the US 20 designation ends. For years there was a sign assembly attesting to that fact, but when that traffic island was altered in about 2008, the "End" sign was removed and not replaced until 2017:
|
Moraseski
|
Elbert, July 2006
|
Bourey, Mar. 2017
|
Morrison, Oct. 2017
|
|
The US 20 designation originally extended further ahead via Beacon and ended at the State House. This shot was looking east on Beacon at Park Street. The State House is off the left side of the photo, so this was US 20's original terminus:
|
TopHatGuy, Apr. 2019
|
|
Sometime in the 1930s, part of Beacon became one-way westbound, so US 20 was moved to the end of Commonwealth Avenue at the Public Garden:
|
c. 1956, Gousha
|
|
This photo was taken looking eastbound on Commonwealth. The cross road is Arlington Street; beyond that is the Public Garden, and in the background some of the skyscrapers in the city center are visible. So this is the perspective of a driver at US 20's second terminus in Boston:
|
TopHatGuy, Apr. 2019
|
TopHatGuy, Apr. 2019
|
That photo was looking the opposite direction (west on Commonwealth from the Public Garden). Today that is designated MA state route 2, but historically that was the east beginning of US 20. USGS maps indicate that sometime during the 1960s, US 1 traffic was redirected through Back Bay (instead of through MIT) along a routing that included Commonwealth. That may have been what prompted the truncation of US 20 to its current terminus. About a mile ahead, as one approaches the intersection with Beacon, signs note that the junction with US 20 is upcoming...
|
Google Maps Street View, 2014
|
...and in December 2016 a new sign was installed on westbound Commonwealth, just before the beginning of US 20...
MassDoT, Dec. 2016 (linked to source)
|
|
...but unfortunately the mileage on that sign is significantly overstated. MassDoT copied the information from a similar sign that was posted at the route's western terminus in Oregon (more details below, in the Newport section).
On westbound Beacon, there is also a reference to US 20 just prior to its eastern beginning: |
Google Maps Street View, Sep. 2019
|
|
Just ahead, where Commonwealth and Beacon traffic diverge, US 20 begins at Kenmore Square:
Google Maps Street View, 2014
|
Morrison, Oct. 2017
|
|
These photos show the first westbound markers, as they appeared in the past and more recently:
|
Mortell, 1999
|
Bourey, Mar. 2017
|
Morrison, Oct. 2017
|
From 1926 to 1940, the west end of US 20 was at the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. This map showing the original extent of US 20 was included in a 1927 US Dept. of Agriculture Office of Information press release, issued shortly after the US routes were commissioned:
c. 1927, US Government Printing Office
It could be argued that the west end of the eastern segment of US 20 is still at the east entrance to Yellowstone: this line of reasoning holds that the "US highway 20" which was commissioned in 1940 (running from the west entrance of Yellowstone to Oregon) is a separate (western) segment of that route. While that is technically true (since US routes are not signed in Yellowstone), another line of thought considers US 20 to be a single route which was extended west via an implied route through the Park.
|
Some historic maps show that when US 20 was first extended west, it ended in Albany OR for a year or two:
|
c. 1941, ODoT
|
|
Note how US 20 is shown running through Lebanon to Albany, but the road between Albany and Corvallis is marked as SR 26, as is today's US 20 from Corvallis towards Newport. This photo was taken looking north on Main Street:
|
Elbert, Aug. 2009
|
Originally US 99E followed the route of the minivan and the pickup visible in the distance: it came in from the right on Salem Avenue, then ahead on Main a block or two, then left on either 1st or 2nd Avenue. Westbound US 20 came in from the right via Santiam Highway (the road in the foreground), then would have gone ahead one block on Main, ending at the next intersection (Salem), at its junction with US 99E (that intersection has now been reconfigured into a roundabout). But that endpoint was very short-lived: in the early 1940s, US 20 was extended past Albany, through Corvallis and on to its current western terminus at Newport. The Oregon DoT must have done that extension without AASHO's approval, because AASHO did not address it until their 1943 meeting, and it appears to have already been in effect:
|
In this photo, we are looking west on Olive Street (US 20) in Newport:
Elbert, May 2005
|
The US 20 designation ends just ahead; this photo shows the intersection:
Elbert, Dec. 2004
|
The traffic signal is at the Coast Highway, or US 101; the Pacific Ocean is about a half-mile straight ahead. The green sign directs Waldport and Florence traffic to the left, while Depoe Bay and Lincoln City is to the right. Underneath that is a blue sign denoting that US 101 is also the Pacific Coast Byway scenic route. When that sign was installed, it unfortunately replaced an "End US 20" assembly. Below is a historic photo showing the west beginning of US 20 from northbound US 101:
(attribution unknown; submitted by Michael Summa)
|
I am not sure of the date on that photo, but it may have been taken shortly after US 20 had been extended to Newport. This next photo is a from roughly the same perspective; the cars in the foreground are at the west end of US 20, as we look north on US 101...
Elbert, Dec. 2004
|
...and this one shows the signage for southbound:
Cooper, Aug. 2002
|
|
The "Begin" signs were tacked on about a week before that photo was taken. "Begin" signs are not common anywhere in the country, and these may be the only ones in Oregon. In late 2016, an even better improvement was made: drivers taking that turn to the east were treated to a really cool new sign:
|
Brunelle, Nov. 2016
|
US Ends .com supports posting information like that at the endpoints of cross-country routes. However, the "3365 miles" figure is unfortunately incorrect. By our calculations US 20 (as routed in 2016) is quite a bit less than 3300 miles, so the mileage on that sign is significantly overstated (more on this blog post).
|
|
The source of the error on the sign comes from a misinterpretation of the 1989 AASHTO route log. According to that source, the mileage of mainline US 20 at the time was 3237 miles. The only way to arrive at a figure of 3365 miles is to include the mileage for all US 20 Business and Alternate routes (which obviously results in an overstatement of US 20's actual cross-country mileage). Also, a lot has changed since 1989 (for example, US 20 now has a freeway alignment across most of Iowa). As of 2020, US 20's total length was closer to 3220 miles. But apparently MassDoT assumed that ODoT's figure was correct, rather than verifying it. Nevertheless, the idea behind these twin signs is a good one. Formerly the first standard confirming assembly was about six blocks further ahead:
|
Elbert, Dec. 2004
|
Research and/or photo credits: George Bourey; Wayne Brunelle; Nancy Cooper; Chris Elbert; Dan Moraseski; Jeff Morrison; Robert Mortell; Dale Sanderson; Michael Summa; TopHatGuy; Joe Zelinski
Page originally created 2000;
last updated Apr. 7, 2022.
last updated Apr. 7, 2022.
