Etymology of "Expressway"

I work in downtown Boston.  Normally I take the train in, but drove in today.  I come in by way of the Southeast Expressway.  Which was it's normal parking lot.  Since my father was an English professor, I often think about the origin of the words we use.  Somewhere around a mile before my exit, I figured out the etymology of Expressway.  When I expressed numerous and evil ways to return the torture to the traffic engineers who designed the darned thing.