Portal:Maryland roads/Selected article/November 2017

Maryland Route 18 (MD 18) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The state highway runs 20.37 mi from the beginning of state maintenance at Love Point east to MD 213 in Centreville. MD 18 is the main east–west local highway on Kent Island and east to Centreville, serving the centers of Stevensville, Chester, Kent Narrows, Grasonville, and Queenstown that are bypassed by U.S. Route 50 (US 50) and US 301. What is signed as MD 18 is actually a set of four suffixed highways: MD 18A, MD 18B, MD 18S, and MD 18C. There are also several unsigned segments of MD 18 scattered along the length of the signed portions. What is now MD 18 was first paved along portions in the 1910s. Gaps in the Stevensville–Queenstown highway were filled throughout the 1920s, leaving only a crossing of Kent Narrows to be completed in the early 1930s. MD 18 between Stevensville and Love Point was constructed in the early 1930s. The Stevensville–Queenstown highway was designated part of MD 404, while the highways on both ends to Love Point and Centreville were designated MD 18. US 50 replaced MD 404 when the former highway was extended east of Annapolis in 1949. When US 50 was relocated as a divided highway between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Queenstown in the early 1950s, MD 18 was assigned to the bypassed highway. Since the mid-1980s, several suffixed sections of MD 18 have been created, relocated, or received new designations due to expansion of US 50 and US 301 to a freeway. (more...)

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