Marked north-south.

The Baltimore Beltway was first conceived in October 1949 as the Baltimore County Beltway, in a study by the Baltimore County Planning Commission. The project began as a local county road project, until 1953 when it was taken over by the state. In 1956, it was incorporated into the Interstate system.

It was in Anne Arundel County, however, that the first pieces of a proto-beltway begin to appear in the early fifties, between the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Nursery Rd., and later extending south to Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd. (then MD 3, now 648). An at-grade intersection existed at MD 170 (Exit 6) until the late sixties. The first construction in Baltimore County began in the Towson area in 1955. The original length of the Beltway was completed in July 1962, running from Ritchie Hwy. (MD 2) in Glen Burnie clockwise 3/4 of the way around Baltimore to Pulaski Hwy. (US 40), from current exits 3 to 35.

On the east side of Baltimore County, the Beltway was to be extended down the Back River Neck peninsula as the Southeast Freeway, then to cross Back River in approaching an outer crossing of the Patapsco River. Part of this extension was completed south to Eastern Blvd. (MD 150) in 1972, ending temporarily at Old Eastern Ave. (formerly MD 600). Construction of the rest of this alignment as a freeway was offically killed in July 1978. Parts of two other routes to the west along the Patapsco Neck were pressed into service, the Windlass and Patapsco Freeways. Only the section of the Windlass from the Beltway west to the proposed junction with the Patapsco Freeway was completed, then to head south along the Patapsco to a section near MD 150 which was begun as early as 1966. The proposed interchange between the two routes became a sharp bend. There is no exit 37 on 695, in case one route or the other was resurrected.

The entire Windlass-Patapsco combination was completed by 1974, and made Beltway exits 36-42. The Southeast Freeway south of the Beltway split became MD 702, which was extended as an at-grade highway in 1990.

Plans for an Other Harbor Crossing originally called for another tunnel similar to the Harbor Tunnel completed in 1958. In 1972 plans were revised and thus the Key Bridge came into being. The Key Bridge was completed in 1977, originally with two-lane approaches. The west approach, which also includes the Curtis Creek Drawbridge, was soon dualized, and the eastern approach is currently being upgraded, replacing a long viaduct.

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