Florida US 1 travels along the east coast of
Florida, beginning at 490 Whitehead Street in
Key West and passing through
Miami,
Hollywood,
Fort Lauderdale,
Boca Raton,
West Palm Beach,
Jupiter,
Fort Pierce,
Melbourne,
Cocoa,
Titusville,
Daytona Beach,
Palm Coast,
St. Augustine, and
Jacksonville. The southernmost piece through the chain islands of the
Florida Keys, about long, is the two-lane
Overseas Highway, originally built in the late 1930s after railroad tycoon
Henry Flagler's
Florida East Coast Railway's
Overseas Railroad, which was built between 1905 and 1912 on stone pillars, was ruined by the
1935 Labor Day hurricane. The rest of US 1 in Florida is generally a four-lane
divided highway, despite the existence of the newer
I-95 not far away. Famous vacation scenic route
State Road A1A is a continuous oceanfront alternate to US 1 that runs along the beaches of the
Atlantic Ocean, cut only by assorted unbridged inlets and the
Kennedy Space Center at
Cape Canaveral. North of Jacksonville, US 1 turns northwest toward
Augusta, Georgia;
US 17 becomes the coastal route into
Virginia, where
US 13 takes over. In Florida until the 1990s, US 1 used high-contrast markers (white text on a red background).
Georgia The part of US 1 in
Georgia, as it shifts from the coastal alignment in Florida to the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line alignment in South Carolina, is generally very rural, passing through marshes and former
plantations between the towns and cities of
Folkston,
Waycross,
Alma,
Baxley,
Lyons,
Swainsboro, and
Augusta. The
Georgia Department of Transportation has an ongoing plan to widen all of US 1 to four lanes with bypasses, which is more than 50 percent complete.
The Carolinas In
South Carolina, US 1 generally serves mostly rural areas as it falls west of
I-95 while the coastal areas are served by routes east of it. Starting in South Carolina, US 1 is paralleled by
I-20 along the
Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line through
Aiken,
Lexington, and
Columbia to
Camden and
Lugoff. US 1 functions as a local two-lane road with occasional boulevard stretches. After Camden, US 1 continues northeast away from any Interstate toward
Bethune,
Patrick,
McBee, and
Cheraw with no bypasses or four-lane sections except around Cheraw through the
US 52 and
South Carolina Highway 9 (SC 9) concurrencies. After SC 9, it continues northward into North Carolina as a two -lane highway. The
South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) has no plans to widen or bypass any US 1 alignments northeast of Camden to the North Carolina line. Between the South Carolina line and the
US 74 bypass, US 1 is a two-lane road but sees a considerable amount of truck and tourist traffic of people cutting through from the US 74/
US 220 and
I-73/
I-74 corridor attempting to reach points south and east. US 1 goes through downtown
Rockingham, with a bypass in the future plans. North of the
North Carolina Highway 177 (NC 177) junction, it becomes four lanes or greater, becoming a
superstreet with limited access and then becoming a limited access freeway. US 1 becomes a major artery for the state as it moves north of Rockingham. After
Richmond County, it goes into
Moore County with two expressway bypasses in
Southern Pines,
Vass, and
Cameron. US 1 continues with the
Jefferson Davis Highway label through
Lee County and
Sanford, and on to
Cary and
Raleigh. US 1 runs concurrently with
US 64 through most of Cary, where the freeway recently underwent a major renovation and improvements that added lanes in both directions. North of Raleigh, US 1 (known as Capital Boulevard in northern Wake County) crosses
I-540 and then again becomes a four-lane divided arterial to
I-85 near
Henderson. The
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has begun a corridor study for this section of US 1 to determine the feasibility of transitioning the stretch of highway from I-540 to Wake Forest into a toll road. Moreover, NCDOT is planning to finish four-laning US 1 in Richmond County past NC 177 with a Rockingham bypass to the east. There are no plans from SCDOT to widen US 1 from the state line. From Henderson into Virginia, US 1 runs parallel with I-85 as a two-lane local road until the state line, where Virginia hosts a continuous third center lane for alternate passing toward
US 58 before
South Hill.
Mid-Atlantic In the
Mid-Atlantic, US 1 generally serves some of the
most populated areas of the east coast. Through
Virginia, US 1 is paralleled by Interstates: the remainder of
I-85 to
Petersburg,
I-95 through
Richmond and
Fredericksburg to
Alexandria, and
I-395 into
Arlington. In much of Virginia, US 1 was called the
Jefferson Davis Highway by state law, although there are exceptions. South of Petersburg, it is known as Boydton Plank Road. Through some of
Fairfax County and Alexandria, it is called the Richmond Highway. In February 2021, Virginia renamed all remaining portions of the Jefferson Davis Highway in the state to Emancipation Highway beginning on January 1, 2022. US 1 crosses the
Potomac River with I-395 on the
14th Street bridges and splits to follow mainly
14th Street and
Rhode Island Avenue through the
District of Columbia. US 1 is at the minimum of three lanes (with alternate passing) from the North Carolina state line to Petersburg with occasional four-lane divided sections. North of Petersburg is a four-lane undivided roadway at the minimum to the DC line. The route of US 1 from Petersburg to the state line is parallel with the
Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line. From Petersburg onward, it is parallel with I-95. After exiting DC into
Maryland, US 1 follows the Baltimore–Washington Boulevard, the first of several modern highways built along the
Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area corridor; I-95 is the newest, after the
Baltimore–Washington Parkway. US 1 runs through the
University of Maryland, College Park, campus in
College Park, Maryland. The route bypasses
Downtown Baltimore on
North Avenue and exits the city to the northeast on Belair Road, gradually leaving the I-95 corridor, which passes through
Wilmington, Delaware, for a straighter path toward
Philadelphia. Around and beyond
Bel Air, US 1 is a two-lane road, crossing the
Susquehanna River over the top of the
Conowingo Dam before entering Pennsylvania. (Routed further north, US 1 bypasses the state of
Delaware, unlike I-95.) By Forrestal Village, the highway downgrades from six to four lanes until after Finnegans Lane in
North Brunswick. Northward, it continues through
New Brunswick as a short limited-access highway until the
County Route 529 (CR 529)/Plainfield Avenue traffic signal in
Edison. Through Edison and
Woodbridge Township, US 1 has a mix of boulevard and limited-access segments and continues to do so after the
US 9 juncture in the
Avenel section of Woodbridge. The
US 1/9 concurrency continues through the rest of the state. The six-lane divided highway remains through
Rahway in
Union County and
Elizabeth, until it reaches
Newark Liberty International Airport, where it becomes a dual carriageway freeway around downtown
Newark in
Essex County with a 2–2–2–2 configuration. The historic
Pulaski Skyway takes US 1/9 into
Jersey City, and the route exits the freeway at the
Tonnele Circle to head north into
Bergen County. US 1/9 turns onto
US 46 as a limited-access highway, and the three routes run northeast to the
George Washington Bridge Plaza, where they merge into I-95. US 46 ends in the middle of the bridge, which crosses the
Hudson River into
New York, and
US 9 exits just beyond onto
Broadway in
Manhattan, but US 1 stays with I-95 onto the
Cross Bronx Expressway, exiting in
the Bronx onto Webster Avenue. Two turns take US 1 via
Fordham Road to Boston Road, which it follows northeast out of the city, becoming Boston Post Road in
Westchester County, never straying far from I-95. From the Bronx to the state line, it is a local road with two lanes in each direction, except in
Rye where it has a single lane in each direction. As it enters
Greenwich, Connecticut, it continues as a two-lane local road.
New England In
New England, US 1 generally serves large cities in a side street capacity. In
Connecticut, US 1 serves the shore of
Long Island Sound parallel to
I-95. Beyond
New Haven, the highway travels east–west, and some signs in the state indicate this rather than the standard north–south. While I-95 in
Rhode Island takes a diagonal path to
Providence, US 1 continues east along the coast through
Westerly to
Wakefield-Peacedale, where it turns north and follows
Narragansett Bay. Most of this part is a four-lane
limited-access highway, providing access to
Route 138 toward
Newport. After
Route 4 splits as a mostly-
freeway connection to I-95, US 1 becomes a lower-speed surface road, passing through
Warwick, Providence, and
Pawtucket. The route parallels I-95 again through Providence and Pawtucket and into
Massachusetts, traveling toward
Boston as a four-lane road. When it reaches
Dedham, US 1 turns east and becomes a freeway through metropolitan Boston,
concurrent with I-95 and
I-93 east to
Braintree and north through
Downtown Boston. The
Tobin Bridge and
Northeast Expressway take US 1 out of Boston, after which it again parallels I-95 as a high-speed surface road through
Newburyport to the New Hampshire state line. The short portion of US 1 in
New Hampshire follows the historic Lafayette Road, staying close to I-95, passing through
Portsmouth before crossing the
Piscataqua River on
Memorial Bridge, which was demolished and replaced during 2012–2013, leaving a temporary gap in US 1. During construction, drivers had to detour to one of two other nearby bridges carrying
US 1 Bypass or I-95. Within
Maine, US 1 begins as a parallel route to I-95 near the
Atlantic Ocean. At
Portland, I-95 splits off to the north, and
I-295 heads northeast paralleling US 1 to
Brunswick. There US 1 turns east as a mostly two-lane road along the coast to
Calais; much of this portion is advertised as the "Coastal Route" on signs. North from Calais, US 1 follows the
Canadian border, crossing I-95 in Houlton and eventually turning west and southwest to its "north" end at the
Clair–Fort Kent Bridge in
Fort Kent. On the
New Brunswick (Canada) side of the bridge,
Route 205 extends south and west to
Saint-François-de-Madawaska, while the short
Route 161 extends north to
Route 120, a secondary east–west route from
Edmundston,
New Brunswick, west to
Quebec Route 289 toward
Saint-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska,
Quebec. ==History==