[3][4] Cold Creek empties into the Yakima River near the Horn Rapids Dam, where the highway intersects SR 225, which continues southwest to Benton City.

The highway passes the city's landfill and a suburban golf course before reaching an intersection with Stevens Drive and Jadwin Avenue at the edge of Richland's residential neighborhoods.

[5] The four-mile (6.4 km) Bypass Highway is followed to the west by the Tri-City Railroad, formerly the main rail link to the Hanford Site and now owned by the Port of Benton, and to the east by the multi-use Urban Green Belt Trail.

[3][9] The three highways continue east for approximately one mile (1.6 km) and reach a combination interchange with George Washington Way, a local road that carries part of SR 240 Business.

[2][5] SR 240 continues across the Yakima River Delta as a fully grade-separated freeway, fronted to the west by a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad and the east by the Sacagawea Heritage Trail.

[14] The freeway intersects Edison Street and Columbia Park Trail on the north side of the railroad before reaching its eastern terminus, a dogbone interchange with US 395 at the south end of the Blue Bridge.

[23] Local Native American tribes also used a trail following the route of the Hanford Highway to reach points west of Rattlesnake Mountain, including Yakima.

[24] By the early 1910s, several unpaved roads connected Richland to the Cold Creek Valley and Kennewick via a more westerly crossing of the Yakima River Delta on a bridge built by the Benton County government in 1906.

[32] The road along Cold Creek was closed in November 1943 as part of the establishment of a federal weapons development facility at the Hanford Site during World War II.

[33] To serve the new facility and evacuate residents in the event of an emergency,[34] a four-lane highway bypassing Richland to the west was constructed by the county government in July 1948, connecting to US 410 with a new bridge over the Yakima River.

[38][39] The southern section of the Richland bypass, terminating near Hanford, was designated as Secondary State Highway 3R (SSH 3R) in 1953 and extended west via modern SR 224 to Kiona two years later.

[57][58] The population of the Tri-Cities region grew substantially in the late 20th century, causing increased traffic congestion on the urban sections of SR 240.

It travels north–south through the city's main commercial center, primarily on George Washington Way and Jadwin Avenue, from the eastern interchange with I-182 to the Stevens Drive intersection at the north end of the Richland Bypass.