Traveling between Wenham and Gloucester should ultimately be smooth as silk, but drivers will likely feel like they're on a corduroy road until a major repaving of Route 128 is completed in 2010.
MassHighway has announced plans to upgrade the northern end of the Greater Boston beltway beginning early next month, from Grapevine Road in Wenham to Route 127 in Gloucester.
As part of the work, the top layer of roadway on both sides of the highway will be ground up and replaced with a fresh layer of asphalt pavement.
In addition, on- and off-ramps along the route will be renewed. Adam Hurtubise, a spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Transportation, said acceleration and deceleration lanes on the ramps will also be lengthened to give drivers more time to merge into and out of highway traffic.
The work will be completed in five-mile increments to ease traffic problems. Hurtubise said the contractor, Brox Industries of Dracut, hasn't yet determined whether the work will begin on the Wenham or Gloucester end of the project.
At least one lane of traffic will be open at all times, Hurtubise said. The state is footing the entire $7 million bill for the project.
The Route 128 designation dates back to the 1920s, when the state Department of Public Works assigned it to a group of existing roads to create a circumferential route around Boston. As a limited-access highway, the first section of the road, from Braintree to Gloucester, opened in 1951. Built to handle 15,000 vehicles per day on the North Shore, the heavily used highway now struggles to accommodate more than 80,000 on that stretch.
The State Highway Department spent $2 million updating signs on Route 128 on the North Shore in 2007.
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