a short residential street named "Old Middlesex Turnpike Street" that lies on or very near the original right-of-way, and the occasional property line denotes the original route. Its route would have gone through the middle of the Drum Hill Rotary where US 3, Route 4, Drum Hill Road and Old Westford Road all come together, and from there would have followed North Road (Route 4) and Princeton Street (Route 3A) into what is now North Chelmsford's Vinal Square, following modern Route 3A along Tyngsboro Road through North Chelmsford and Middlesex Road through Tyngsboro to Nashua, New Hampshire, where it becomes Daniel Webster Highway. It was about in length, with four toll gates along the way. As was the practice of that time, the road was as straight as possible, and thus missed the advantages of passing through economic centers along the way. As its route closely paralleled that of the Middlesex Canal, and later the railroad, it suffered stiff competition for both freight and passenger traffic. As a result, at some point during the early to mid 1800s, the section that used to cross the Concord River between Concord Road (Billerica) and Mill Road (Chelmsford) was fenced off and was no longer used due to the rough terrain. The road was thus never particularly profitable. Its charter was repealed in 1841, and it became a free road in 1846. U.S. Route 3, the expressway largely built in the 1950s from Burlington to Tyngsboro, is substantially parallel to the Middlesex Turnpike. Improvement Project The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is upgrading the Middlesex Turnpike in cooperation with the Towns of Burlington, Bedford and Billerica based on concept plans developed in the 1980s. Early work included Middlesex Turnpike in Burlington (up to the start of Network Drive) and the creation of Network Drive. "Phase 1" of the current work was the widening of Crosby Drive. Phase 1 was Completed in 2007. Phase 2 began in Burlington at Route 62 and Network Drive (now Middlesex Turnpike) and stretches into Bedford just north of Crosby Drive. Total cost of Phase 2 was expected to be $13 Million+. Construction on Phase 2 began in July 2010 and ended in 2016. The contractor for Phase 2 was Newport Construction Corporation of Nashua New Hampshire. With the completion of Phase 2, the main flow of traffic uses a new segment of road (built on the Mitre fields) to