Circumferential Highway (Nashua) - Justification For The Highway

Justification For The Highway

The Circumferential Highway has been planned since the 1950s, as the need for such a road has been apparent for a long time. To date, however, only a short 2-mile (3.2 km) segment has been built. One of the major provisions of the plan for the highway is to provide a new crossing over the Merrimack River. Currently there are four bridges over the Merrimack River between Lowell, Massachusetts and Manchester, New Hampshire. Drivers wishing to access U.S. Route 3 from the east side of the river have the following options (listed here from south to north):

• The Tyngsboro Bridge, which provides access to US 3 via Massachusetts Route 113.
• The Sagamore Bridge, connecting the Everett Turnpike (US 3) to New Hampshire Route 3A in Hudson, with an intermediate exit at the Daniel Webster Highway in the South Nashua retail district.
• The Taylor Falls/Veterans Memorial Bridges (a.k.a. The Hudson Bridge), which puts traffic through the city streets of Nashua, such as Hollis Street and Canal Street, streets which cross several train tracks, and which lack the capacity to handle the demand.
• The Raymond Wieczorek Drive/Manchester Airport Access Road bridge, built in 2011, which provides a connection between NH Route 3A in the southern tip of Manchester, a few miles south of Interstate 293, and the Everett Turnpike in the southern corner of Bedford, with an interchange connecting the road with US 3.

The Circumferential Highway would provide an additional river crossing between Nashua and Manchester, where one does not exist. The Sagamore Bridge crossing south of downtown Nashua was expanded and forms the only portion of the Circumferential Highway that has been constructed.