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Driving on Cape Cod, Massachusetts | |
| In summer, driving to Cape Cod, you'll be in the midst of lots of traffic—know what you're getting into. | ||
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by Tom Brosnahan |
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If you're driving to Cape Cod, once you cross the bridge over the Cape Cod Canal (map) you'll have a choice of three major roads that connect the towns on Cape Cod: Mid-Cape Highway: US 6US Route 6, the Mid-Cape Highway, is the fastest way to travel from the "Inner" (or "Upper") Cape" (the part you first come to by land) to the "Outer Cape" (or "Lower Cape"), the narrow portion north of Orleans to Provincetown). Hemmed in by forest, it is a four-lane limited-access divided highway from the Cape Cod Canal to Orleans (except for a 13-mile/21-km length of two-lane highway). North of Orleans it is mostly four-lane undivided highway to Provincetown. The Alternate Route: MA 6AUS 6 is not the prettiest way to go, with views mostly of forests bordering the highway. MA Route 6A travels along the northern part of the Cape from Sandwich through the pretty, historic villages near Cape Cod Bay: Barnstable, Cummaquid, Yarmouth Port, Yarmouth, and Dennis before heading eastward to Brewster and Orleans. The stretch of MA Route 6A between Sandwich and Dennis is a lush panorama of bogs and marshes, distant views of dunes and the sea, birds calling and fluttering, the winding road dotted with antique shops, craft shops, art galleries, and other businesses including lots and lots of real estate offices. Meandering MA Route 28MA Route 28 connects the Bourne Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal to Orleans via Falmouth, Hyannis, West Yarmouth, West Dennis, Dennis Port, Harwich Port, and Chatham. This is Cape Cod's main east-west commercial highway along the southern part of the Cape, with shopping centers, stores, light industry, restaurants, amusements and lodgings interspersed with stretches of woodland, bridged rivers and salt marshes. It is perhaps the slowest route because of heavy traffic and numerous traffic signals, but it leads to Cape Cod's greatest concentration of lodgings. More... Signed as MA 28 North and South, these directions are accurate only for the stretch between the Bourne Bridge and Falmouth. After that the highway, signed as South, actually goes northeast, then east, and finally north from Chatham to Orleans. So if you want to go south and west from Orleans, you follow MA 28 North. Got that? —by Tom Brosnahan
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MA Route 6A east of Sandwich: a pretty, meandering ride through shady groves and charming Cape Cod villages.
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