Business Spur I-495 - Lowell

Business Spur I-495 was the designation given to the freeway spur from U.S. 3 and Interstate 495 into the city of Lowell. Named the Lowell Connector, it is an older limited access roadway with a 55 mile per hour speed limit and numbered interchanges. The 3.1 mile long route provides fast access to the city center and the University of Massachusetts from the area freeway network. It concludes at a signalized intersection with Gorham Street (Exit 5 C).

The lone remaining trailblazer for the route was taken down from the city of Lowell after 2007. The Lowell Connector is unnumbered otherwise.

The redesignation of the route to an unnumbered facility may relate to the fact that it serves traffic from U.S. 3 as much as it does from I-495. Date stamps on the Lowell Connector bridgework indicated that it was constructed during the first phase of I-495 (MA 2 to U.S. 3) in 1959-60. Exit numbers on the route formerly counted up to 6, as remnant service signs referenced lodging for Exit 6 at one time (Somnolent, personal communication).