I-195 begins at I-95 at a semi-directional T interchange, which along with a new bridge over the Providence River, was part of the large Iway construction project. At this point US Route 6 is also signed along I-195. The complex Iway interchange includes several ramps for local streets and an interchange with I-95, which is unnumbered. US 44 and US 1A join at the next interchange with Gano Street and Main Street, labeled exits 1C, 1D, and 1E. The road crosses the Washington Bridge over the Seekonk River into East Providence. US 44 leaves the freeway at Exit 1C in East Providence. Exit 1D is a partial interchange with Route 103 while Exit 2A provides access to several local streets in East Providence. Exits 2B-C provide access to Route 114, which is also where US 6 and US 1A leave the freeway. I-195 then leaves Rhode Island, having gone. I-195 enters Seekonk, Massachusetts and interchanges with Route 114A at exit 1. There are two interchanges in Swansea, exit 2 for Massachusetts Route 136 and exit 3 for US 6. Access to the town of Somerset and the village of Ocean Grove in Swansea is via Exit 4. I-95 crosses the Braga Bridge over the Taunton River, entering Fall Fiver. The bridge passes over Battleship Cove and the USS Massachusetts, after which exit 5 provides access to Route 79 and Route 138. Exits 6-7 provide access to downtown Fall River streets, while a brief concurrency with Route 24 exists between exit 8A and 8B. Passing the Watuppa Ponds, I-195 enters Westport, where exit 9 is a partial interchange with Sanford Road, and exit 10 marks the northern terminus of Route 88. Exits 11 and 12 provide access to local roads in Dartmouth, while shortly after entering the port city ofNew Bedford there's a full cloverleaf interchange with the Route 140 freeway. Exits 14-18 are partial interchanges with several local New Bedford city streets. A bridge over the Acushnet River takes I-195 to the town of Fairhaven, where there is the northern terminus of Route 240 freeway at exit 18. Exit 19 is for North Street in Mattapoisett, exit 20 is Route 105 in Marion, and exit 21 is Route 28 in Wareham. I-195 ends at trumpet interchange with I-495 and Route 25 in Wareham, having in Massachusetts.
History
Predating I-195 were two sections of road—Fox Point Boulevard and the Washington Bridge. The Washington Bridge, crossing the Seekonk River between Providence and East Providence, was opened on September 25, 1930, replacing an 1885 swing bridge with a higher bascule bridge. A new eastbound bridge opened in November 1968. Fox Point Boulevard, later George M. Cohan Boulevard, was a surface boulevard connecting the Washington Bridge west to the Point Street Bridge and downtown Providence. It was built with no cross traffic by using U-turn ramps in the median to reverse direction. This was the last part in Providence to be built as a freeway, opened in December 1968. The first freeway section came off the west end of Cohan Boulevard and over the Providence River, ending at the one-way pair of Pine Street and Friendship Street, which opened in November 1958. The ramp to Pine Street has been closed, but the entrance from Friendship Street still exists. The I-95 interchange at this end opened in fall 1964; the Pine Street ramp was kept for a while. The next section to be constructed was the part in East Providence. It opened to the last exit before the state line on December 15, 1959, and was extended into Massachusetts by August 1960. Interstate 195 cut through the center of Watchemoket Square, which about thirty years earlier been the heart of downtown East Providence, but was on the decline in the 1950s. Half of the square was demolished to make way for the highway. Before the Interstate Highway System numbering was decided upon, I-195 was planned as a relocation of US 6; in fact, all but the last section was signed as US 6 when built. In 1957, the number Interstate 95E was assigned, as all intercity routes were numbered before the three-digit Interstate numbering was chosen, and the Providence-New Bedford route was too long to be considered intracity. The I-195 designation was assigned in 1959 with the final numbering. At some time after 1976, the definition of I-195 was extended east to I-495. I-195 still carries US 6, now in both directions, from I-95 to the last interchange before Massachusetts. It also carries US 1A and US 44 over the Washington Bridge and its approaches, though the former has almost no signs.
Iway
I-195's stretch through Providence was reconstructed because of sharp curves and the way the road cuts through part of the city. The relocation made the segment safer for traffic, reunified the Jewellery District with Downcity Providence, and freed up more space. In the process, some 35 buildings, housing over 80 businesses and six residences were demolished. The new stretch of highway is called the Iway by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation and includes a signature bridge over the Providence River as well as a landscaped pedestrian walkway over the highway. It connects India Point Park to the Fox Point neighborhood. The IWay was opened in 2009 and estimated to have cost $446 million. The demolition of the old road was completed in 2012.
Exit list
Massachusetts interchanges were to be renumbered to mileage-based numbering in a project scheduled to begin in 2016, until the project was indefinitely postponed by MassDOT. On November 18, 2019, MassDOT announced the project would begin in late summer 2020. Rhode Island interchanges will also be renumbered to a mileage-based system by 2020 in a plan announced by RIDOT in September 2017 and scheduled to begin on January 28, 2020.
