Bradley Airport Connector


The Bradley Airport Connector is a freeway built to connect Bradley International Airport to Interstate 91 in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. It begins at Exit 48 of I-91 and heads west following Route 20 for about 4 miles along the town line between Windsor and Windsor Locks. The expressway then turns north, leaving Route 20 and briefly becoming an unsigned state road ending at the airport terminals.
On October 10, 1999, the Connector was named the "82nd Airborne Memorial Highway", in honor of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. According to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the freeway carries as many as 54,900 vehicles per day.

Route description

The highway begins at Exit 48 of I-91 in the town of Windsor Locks. After traveling about a quarter of a mile along the exit ramp, the main roadway starts as a four-lane freeway with unnumbered exits. The highway's first exit is with Old County Road a mile later. The second exit is signed for Route 75, which provides access to the long-term parking lots of the airport and leads to the town of Suffield. After about, the highway has another exit for Hamilton Road. Soon after this exit, the highway enters East Granby, and Route 20 exits at the highway's fourth exit to continue west on surface roads. At this point, the expressway turns north to reenter Windsor Locks and soon enters the perimeter of Bradley International Airport. After a partial interchange with Hamilton Road North, the highway ends at Schoephoester Road, a one-way road that connects to the terminal access road.
The highway designation becomes Special Service Road 401 after Route 20 leaves the Connector. The SSR 401 designation continues east on Schoephoester Road, which continues for another as a four-lane surface road to connect with Route 75. Schoephoester Road also provides access to the Bradley Airport parking lots. The airport terminal access road connects to Schoephoester Road about half a mile east of the end of the expressway at a jughandle intersection. The airport terminal access road is a one-way, unsigned state road with designation Special Service Road 403.

History

The project to build this connector was proposed in the early 1950s, but was not started until 1958. Three years later, on July 3, 1961, the four-lane expressway was open to traffic. The highway cost $3.9 million to construct. When the Connector opened to traffic, Route 20 was relocated to use the east-west portion of the highway. This resulted in Route 20 being truncated to end at I-91. The portion of the highway that is not part of Route 20 was assigned as SSR 401 in 1963.