The region’s highway system is made up of Interstate highways (both tolled and non-tolled) and limited access highways. All of these facilities are well-suited for use by commercial vehicles.

The Interstate numbering scheme designates east-west highways as even numbers and north-south highways are assigned odd numbers. The DVRPC region is served by two principal two-digit Interstate Highways, I-76 and I-95.

Auxiliary Interstate highways are circumferential, radial, or spur highways that principally serve urban areas. These types of Interstate highways are given three-digit route numbers, which consist of a single digit prefixed to the two-digit number of a nearby primary Interstate highway. There are a number of examples of three-digit auxiliary Interstate highways in the region including I-195, I-295, I-276, I-476, and I-676.

In the DVRPC region, three agencies operate tolled highways that support and complement the Interstate system. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission operates the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Northeast Extension. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority operates the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Expressway, and the South Jersey Transportation Authority operates the Atlantic City Expressway.

Limited access highways connect collector roads to the Interstate system. U.S. highways with limited access sections in the region (i.e., one or more) include U.S. 1, 30, 202, and 422. State routes with limited access sections (i.e., one or more) include NJ 42, 55, and 90 and PA 13, 63, and 309.

Notes about this layer:
A user may click on a highway line at any point to display an information window with details about that particular segment of the highway. Once the information window is open, the segment of the highway the information is related to will become highlighted in blue.

Truck parking facilities are important components of the transportation and supply chain systems. Since a very high percentage of shipments are trucked for at least some portion of the total trip, especially for final delivery, the supply and availability of well-maintained overnight parking locations are essential. The region’s truck parking facilities form an interrelated system and can be broadly categorized as follows: private truck stops, service plazas, and rest areas.

There are five private truck stops in the region. These facilities offer many amenities and services directly targeted to truck drivers. Some examples of these amenities include: restaurants, showers, laundry, truck scales, truck repair shops, and diesel fuel pumps.

There are seven service plazas in the DVRPC region along the Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes. Service plazas are principally designed to accommodate passenger vehicles, but they are also outfitted with special sections set aside for truck parking. The amenities they offer to truck drivers are limited; namely, food, fuel, and bathrooms.

There are two rest areas in the DVRPC region, both on I-95 in Pennsylvania. Rest areas provide few amenities and are designed to serve as a place to take a short rest, not to stop overnight. Rest areas are relatively small in size and offer a limited number of truck parking spaces, usually fewer than ten.

For more information about the regional truck parking facilities and on the Federal Hours-of-Service regulations, please see the DVRPC publication, Regional Truck Parking Study (2011), at the following link:http://www.dvrpc.org/asp/pubs/publicationabstract.asp?pub_id=09057

Notes about this layer:

• Clicking on a truck parking icon in the map will activate an information window. As a user zooms in towards an individual truck parking facility, the land associated with it will also be highlighted. A user may click on the highlighted land to display the same information as clicking on the icon.

To access intermodal facilities, trucks must often use connector roads from major highways. These roads, which may be either state or locally owned, are referred to as National Highway System (NHS) connectors. (Note: There are categories for NHS freight connectors and NHS transit connectors, both of which may be referred to as intermodal connectors.) By being officially designated as an NHS connector, these roadways are eligible to receive federal NHS funding for improvement projects.

While there are multiple criteria to be designated as an official NHS freight connector, the baseline metric is that the facility being served must generate 100 truck movements per day. The Delaware Valley has 11 officially designated NHS freight connectors, which total approximately 30 miles of roadways. Connectors serve three types of facilities in the Delaware Valley region: intermodal rail facility, port, and airport.

In most cases, connectors serve one specific facility, such as the Philadelphia International Airport or the Joseph Balzano Marine Terminal in Camden. A connector may also serve multiple facilities, such as in South Philadelphia where a single connector serves the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal and the CSX Greenwich Intermodal Facility. While connectors may consist of a single roadway, two or more roadways forming one connector is common because multiple roads must be used to make the full connection to the gate of the freight facility.

Notes about this layer:

• When viewing the entire region on the map, the 11 NHS Freight Connectors are depicted as points represented by the NHS connector icon. When viewing a specific NHS connector at a close-in range, the road(s) that makes up the connector will appear. Clicking on any section of the NHS connector will display the same information window as the connector icon.

While there are countless bridges in the Delaware Valley, bridges on highways that span major rivers (i.e., the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers) are particularly essential to Interstate commerce. In total, 13 such bridges are identified in the PhillyFreightFinder tool. The region’s toll bridges that serve highways are described below.

Four prominent, tolled bridges owned by the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) connect Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin bridges, both single-level suspension bridges, serve I-76 and I-676, respectively. The Betsy Ross Bridge is a continuous truss bridge that serves NJ 90. The Commodore Barry Bridge is a cantilever bridge that serves US 322.

The Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge is an arch-shaped suspended deck truss bridge that connects the New Jersey and Pennsylvania turnpikes. The Trenton-Morrisville Toll Bridge, is a twelve-span bridge serving US 1. The Scudders Falls Bridge is a girder bridge which serves I-95. This bridge is currently free, but a major renovation project will ultimately establish tolls.

Notes about this layer:

• When viewing the entire region on the map, the 13 Highway River Crossings are depicted as points represented by the Highway River Crossing icon. Clicking on an individual Highway River Crossing icon will activate a corresponding information window.