Southwest Corridor (Massachusetts)

Southwest Expressway
Southwest Corridor
Proposed Southwest Corridor in red
Route information
Status	Never built; right-of-way now used for linear park and railway including the Orange Line (MBTA)
History	Planned in 1948–1972
Component highways	I-95 entire length
Major junctions
South end	I-95 / Route 128 in Canton
North end	I-95 / I-695 in Boston
Location
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
Highway system
Massachusetts State Highway System Interstate US State

The Southwest Corridor or Southwest Expressway was a project designed to bring an eight-lane highway into the City of Boston from a direction southwesterly of downtown. It was supposed to connect with Interstate 95 (I-95) at Route 128. As originally designed, it would have followed the right of way of the former Penn Central/New Haven Railroad mainline (current Amtrak Northeast Corridor) running from Readville, north through Roslindale, Forest Hills and Jamaica Plain, where it would have met the also-cancelled I-695 (Inner Belt Expressway). The 50-foot-wide (15 m) median for the uncompleted "Southwest Expressway" would have carried the southwest stretch of the MBTA Orange Line within it, replacing the Washington Street Elevated railway's 1901/1909-built elevated railbed.^[1] Another highway, the four-lane South End Bypass, was proposed to run along the railroad corridor between I-695 in Roxbury and I-90 near Back Bay.^[2]