Pennsylvania Roads - PA 23 - Mainline

Current PA 23


Eastbound through New Holland. I can't tell how old the tiny Turnpike trailblazers are, but they don't seem to be all that old, just unique.


Eastbound and looking north, the unparalleled charm of Pennsylvania Dutch Country at sunset.


The first photo is what happens when I take an over-the-shoulder photo into the setting sun. The second photo, next keystone to the west, is what happens when a town decides to completely rebuild an original keystone instead of just repainting it. Not pretty in either case.


You want pretty? Stop by Poole Forge along Old Pool Forge Road. Here are the Ironmaster's Mansion, Paymaster's House, and Spring House (built around a cold spring to provide a semblance of refrigeration during the summer).


It even comes with its eponymous covered bridge, crossing the Conestoga River. You have to park and walk the 1859 bridge (recommended to park north and walk south, as I did, then looking back north/west at the end).


Skipping east to Phoenixville, some photos heading west with PA 113 SB.


The east end of the Schuylkill Parkway, the only part that traffic can travel on. This faces west from Business US 202 (the former mainline) at a railroad overpass.


Some good but not enough to make up for the bad, WB in West Conshohocken and neighboring Bridgeport. PA 23 jogs along Crawford Rd. to Front St. at the non-cutout shields for Matsonford Rd., which I'm sure was caused by the Schuylkill Expressway.


Things look a lot better in Lower Merion Twp., where the street signs were erected in the 1910s (those are original signs and pedestals, there) and there are no bad shields, only good. These 100-year old gems were recently saved, via nationally approved exception, from the wrath of the MUTCD and its requirements on reflectivity and letter size.


WB from the beginning of PA 23 in the Bala part of Bala Cynwyd to the obvious other side, and both obviously also part of Lower Merion.

Proposed/abandoned Goat Path Expressway
Proposed/abandoned Schuylkill Parkway
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Onto PA 113
To the Penna Turnpike and onto I-76
To I-476
Onto US 202
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