Interstate 95 in Maryland

Capital Beltway I-95 enters the state of Maryland concurrently with I-495, the Capital Beltway. From Alexandria, Virginia, the roadways, five lanes in either direction, travel together over the Potomac River on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, briefly cross the southern tip of the District of Columbia (over water), and touch down in Prince George's County west of Forest Heights. I-95/I-495 immediately encounter the southern terminus of I-295, known as the Anacostia Freeway, a route that serves Downtown Washington, D.C., and connects to the originally planned alignment of I-95 through Washington D.C., I-395. Just beyond I-295 the two routes interchange with MD 210, a major north–south route into the southern part of D.C. The two Interstates continue along the Capital Beltway and have interchanges with various local highways such as MD 5 and MD 4 on either side of Andrews Air Force Base, which the beltway travels very close to near its northern edge. Turning north past the MD 4 interchange, the beltway runs through Glenarden, interchanging with MD 202, US 50, and MD 450, the latter route offering access to New Carrollton Station serving Washington Metro's Orange Line, MARC Train's Penn Line, and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor railroad line and the New Carrollton area. Turning northwest, the beltway enters Greenbelt Park, interchanging with the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in the northeastern edge of the park. Just after the Baltimore–Washington Parkway, the two routes interchange with MD 201, which connects to the southern terminus of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway at US 50 near the D.C. line. Now turned fully west, the beltway runs through the northern edge of College Park, interchanging with the access roadway to the Greenbelt station serving Washington Metro's Green Line and MARC Train's Camden Line and US 1. Beyond the US 1 interchange, I-95 encounters its own route at the College Park Interchange and separates from I-495 within this interchange. I-495 continues west, alone, on the Capital Beltway to I-270, while I-95 turns north onto its own planned alignment. The interchange includes access to a park and ride and a weigh station. It is marked as exit 27 on both interstates. Beltsville to Baltimore Running northeast, I-95, still eight lanes wide, passes through Beltsville, interchanging with MD 212 near the community. The highway, completed in 1971, runs through undeveloped land to the interchange with MD 200 and Konterra Drive before interchanging with MD 198 just west of Laurel. Passing over the Patuxent River just south of the T. Howard Duckett Dam, the route enters Howard County and promptly has an interchange with MD 216. North of the MD 216 interchange, the route encounters its first rest area in the state of Maryland, with separate facilities for the northbound and southbound lanes. Continuing northeast, I-95 interchanges with MD 32 at a modified directional cloverleaf interchange. Within this interchange, I-95 grade-separates, with the northbound carriageway passing over MD 32 and the southbound carriageway passing under MD 32, allowing left exits from both of the latter's carriageways to merge into the left lanes of I-95 without conflict. North of this unusual interchange, I-95 encounters MD 175, the main access route into Columbia, at a less-radical directional cloverleaf interchange. After the MD 175 interchange comes the MD 100 interchange, providing access to Ellicott City, US 29, and I-70 to the west and the Baltimore–Washington Parkway and I-97 to the east. Just beyond this interchange, I-95 encounters three more of its auxiliary routes within Maryland: I-895, which splits from I-95 within Patapsco Valley State Park, just south of the Patapsco River (and at which point the road enters the southwestern part of Baltimore County); I-195 and MD 166 near Catonsville, a short spur to Baltimore/Washington International Airport; and I-695 near Halethorpe, the Baltimore Beltway, a full-circle beltway around Baltimore that offers a full freeway bypass of the city and that connects to I-70, I-83, and I-97. Before its collapse in March 2024, northbound traffic not authorized to make use of either of the direct (tunnel) routes through Baltimore (such as vehicles either carrying hazardous materials or exceeding the tunnel clearance heights) was encouraged to use the eastern half of I-695, which crossed the Patapsco River via the Francis Scott Key Bridge; it is now detoured onto the western half of the beltway, with I-95 being available to all other through traffic. When this part of I-95 opened to traffic in 1971, all interchanges in the stretch had high-mast lighting (with mercury vapor lights), but, beginning in 2010, these were replaced with lower-mounted conventional streetlights. However, the MD 200 and southern I-895 interchanges (which opened in 1973 as part of an extension from its original terminus at US 1) now have high-mast lights (with high-pressure sodium lights, same as those within Baltimore), and new LED high-masts replaced the original ones at the I-195/MD 166 interchange. Within Baltimore South of Baltimore, I-95 is maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration; north of the southern Baltimore city line, I-95 changes jurisdiction to the Maryland Transportation Authority. Continuing on its northeasterly track, the route interchanges with Caton Avenue (US 1 Alt.) just beyond the city line. I-95's interchange with Caton Avenue (US 1 Alt.) incorporates stubs and unused embankments that would have been used for the planned eastern terminus of I-70 within Baltimore (later planned as the southern terminus of I-595, though the freeway was later canceled and that designation was moved to US 50 east of Washington). Continuing past this unbuilt interchange, I-95 intersects Washington Boulevard, a local city street (with ramps to the southbound side and from the northbound side), before encountering the main access route into the central business district, I-395. I-95 also interchanges with MD 295 at the northern terminus of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway (and the southern terminus of Russell Street, with ramps to the transitioning roads and from the terminating ones) within the I-395 interchange, which is almost completely elevated over the middle branch of the Patapsco River. After interchanging with both routes, I-95 interchanges with MD 2 and Key Highway, the latter route offering access to Fort McHenry and an escape route for hazardous material traffic. I-95 encounters the Fort McHenry Tunnel south of Fort McHenry. The tunnel, containing eight lanes, curves underneath the Northwest Harbor and emerges in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, quickly encountering the all-electronic toll plaza and connector ramps that lead to and from Keith Avenue. After the toll plaza, I-95 encounters the Boston Street/O'Donnell Street interchange, which also incorporates stubs and other unused infrastructure planned to be used for the southern terminus of I-83; I-95 also passes over I-895 within the interchange area, with no access between the two routes, then runs into east Baltimore, providing local access to various city streets (a northbound-only exit to Dundalk Avenue and a three-quarter interchange with Eastern Avenue, which share southbound access ramps via Kane Street) in lieu of I-895. It interchanges with the Moravia Road freeway spur next to the Baltimore city line, where ramp stubs were once planned for an unbuilt portion of the Windlass Freeway, then connects with US 40 before narrowing to six lanes and merging with I-895 just after exiting Baltimore into northeastern part of Baltimore County. From 2009 to 2015, new gray gantries were installed that displayed signs in the Clearview font which was being adopted statewide, replacing the old brown gantries and Highway Gothic signs, some of which had button copy. In 2017, the high-mast poles, which were also brown, were taken down and replaced with new gray ones. John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway The John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway portion of I-95, a toll facility operated by the MDTA, begins at the end of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway (I-895), which is also operated by the Maryland Transportation Authority, at the Baltimore city line. Starting out eight lanes wide at the junction with I-895, after , I-95 once again interchanges with I-695 in Rosedale at what was a unique double-crossover interchange. Within this interchange, the carriageways of I-95 narrowed to six lanes and crossed over each other, thereby putting through traffic on the left within the interchange nexus, allowing left exit ramps and left entrance ramps to accommodate four of the eight movements in lieu of flyovers. Beyond the interchange, both sets of carriageways crossed over each other again and resumed right-hand running. As part of the upgrades to I-95 to accommodate express toll lanes in this area, this interchange was replaced with a more conventional four-level stack; all exits are now on the right, and I-95's carriageways no longer cross over one another; a similar project also eliminated the crossovers on I-695. At this junction, southbound vehicles that cannot use either tunnel are redirected onto the western half of I-695, as its eastern half has been severed by the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Continuing to the northeast, parallel with the Chesapeake Bay, the route encounters MD 43 near White Marsh. After passing through Gunpowder Falls State Park, and into Harford County, the route has interchanges with MD 152 north of Joppatowne, then with MD 24, providing access to Bel Air and Edgewood. Within the MD 24 interchange, I-95 narrows to six lanes and remains this wide to the Delaware state line. Just beyond the MD 543 interchange, I-95's carriageways split apart to provide space for the Maryland House service area accessible from both directions. Beyond Maryland House, the route encounters the MD 22 interchange in Aberdeen, providing access to Aberdeen Proving Ground. South of Susquehanna State Park, I-95 encounters the southern end of the remaining tolled portion of the highway at the MD 155 interchange, providing access to Havre de Grace and US 40. (Until the 1980s, there were tolls to enter I-95 southbound and exit it northbound in Harford County.) North of this interchange, I-95 becomes a true toll route as it passes through Susquehanna State Park before crossing the Susquehanna River on the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge. The bridge crosses between bluffs high above the river valley, and is posted with warning signs: "Subject to Crosswinds". The highway now enters Cecil County. Just beyond the bridge is an all-electronic toll gantry at Perryville, where tolls are collected in the northbound direction only. There are no southbound tolls on the highway, but southbound truck traffic may need to stop at a nearby weigh station. At the northern end of the plaza is exit 93 for MD 222 in Perryville, before continuing through Cecil County toward the Delaware state line. (Until the 1980s, there were tolls at the southbound exits and northbound entrances, at the Perryville and North East interchanges.) Still paralleling the northern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, I-95's carriageways split apart again to encounter another service area, Chesapeake House, that is accessible from both directions. Now past the northern tip of the bay, north of Elk Neck State Park, the route encounters MD 272, which provides access to the towns of North East and Rising Sun. The "North East Rising Sun" exit off I-95 has been read by some drivers, including children's writer Katherine Paterson, as referring to a single exotically named location. Having turned east, the route now runs straight toward the Delaware state line, passing under MD 213 north of Elkton with no access offered and then reaching the exit 109 interchange with MD 279, which provides a direct route into Elkton and Newark, Delaware. I-95's run through Maryland comes to an end quickly after that exit, and it crosses the Delaware state line, becomes the Delaware Turnpike, and soon reaches the Newark mainline toll plaza (in 2012, the Maryland Transportation Authority installed signs prior to and at the MD 279 interchange informing motorists of the Delaware toll plaza ahead). Similar to what was done on the between the beltways segment, new lighting projects have replaced the original high-mast lights (which were also mercury vapor) with conventional streetlights at the MD 152 and MD 155 interchanges, but new high-masts were installed from the Perryville toll plaza to MD 222. Additionally, there are now high-mast lights at the northern I-695 interchange in Rosedale to match its southern counterpart in Halethorpe (although the ones in Halethorpe were removed by 2018); those replaced the conventional streetlights that had existed within the area. Express lanes I-95 has express toll lanes in the median between the I-895 merge into the northern part of Baltimore to just north of MD 152 in Joppa, with two express toll lanes in each direction. The express toll lanes utilize all-electronic tolling; tolls are collected by E-ZPass or video tolling, which uses automatic license plate recognition and sends a bill in the mail to the vehicle owner. Video tolling users pay an additional 50-percent surcharge on their tolls. The toll rates along the express toll lanes vary by time of day and the day of the week. Peak travel times, which is southbound during weekday mornings, northbound during weekday evenings, and both directions on weekend afternoons, have the highest rates. Off-peak travel times, which occur during the daytime outside of peak travel times, have lower rates, with the overnight hours having the lowest rates. ==Services==