Too Many Cars Killed America's First Superhighway. Now It's Killing the Town.

GHOST MAPS · American places that emptied out — and what was left behind. ▶ Watch the series:    • Ghost Maps   On November 26, 1968, the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened a 13.5-mile bypass over Sideling Hill and Rays Hill — and abandoned 13 miles of America's first superhighway, two tunnels included, without ceremony. The road wasn't failing: it was carrying 31 million vehicles a year, 24 times what its planners designed for, and the two-lane tunnels had become the most famous traffic jams in America. This is the story of a corridor that keeps abandoning things: a railroad killed by a handshake on J.P. Morgan's yacht in 1885; thirteen miles of superhighway sold for one dollar in 2001; and Breezewood — the town of 19 motels and 10 gas stations that a federal funding rule built — now waiting on the interchange project (engineering began April 2026) that will finally let the traffic pass it by. Sources: FHWA Highway History ("The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike"); PA Turnpike Commission history & interactive timeline; paturnpike.com Breezewood Interchange announcements (Sept 24, 2024; Apr 21, 2026); pahighways.com; AARoads wiki; TIME ("Birth of the Penn Central"); ABA Banking Journal ("J.P. Morgan, Railroad Referee"); TribLive (Breezewood interchange reporting, Joan LaSalle and Alex Francis quotes); WSJ (Breezewood interchange analysis); Condé Nast Traveler (Ken Jennings); Hagerty; National Geographic ("Breezewood: The Neon Jumble"); County of Fulton Pike 2 Bike page; Edward Burtynsky's "Breezewood, Pennsylvania" (2008, OIL series) is discussed but not shown; Wikipedia for tunnel specifications. Image credits (Wikimedia Commons): public-domain items incl. Tichnor Bros. postcards, FSA/OWI 1942 photographs, and period portraits; CC-licensed photographs by Mr. Matté (CC BY-SA 3.0); Steve Shook (CC BY 2.0); the norse (CC BY 2.0); Ben Schumin (CC BY-SA 2.5 / CC BY-SA 2.0); Arandomphotographer (CC BY 4.0); Andrew Bossi (CC BY-SA 2.5); Dough4872 (CC BY-SA 4.0). Stock footage: Pexels. #abandonedplaces #pennsylvania #infrastructure