The Washington Outer Beltway was a proposed freeway that would have extended further out than the Capital Beltway and encircled Washington, D.C. through the states of Maryland and Virginia. Most of the route was canceled in the 1980s. Parts of it have been built as the Fairfax County Parkway in Virginia, [1] as well as Interstate 370 and the Intercounty Connector in Maryland. [2]
Initial plans were developed in the 1950s for the proposed 122-mile (196 km) Washington Outer Beltway. [3] The National Capital Park and Planning Commission issued a Comprehensive Plan for the Nation's Capital and Its Environs in 1950. The comprehensive plan included three different circular roads in and around the District of Columbia. The original Outer Beltway had been planned to pass south of the corporate limits of the City of Rockville, as shown on a map published in The Washington Post in 1951 with the caption "Ring Road suggested by Bureau of Public Roads". [4] In 1953, the portion of the Outer Beltway between Montgomery County and Prince George's County was included in the Master Plan of Highways of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. It was later included in the Commission's General Plan in 1957, and the Commission's On Wedges and Corridors plan in 1964. [3]
In the 1960s, an "outer circumferential highway" was proposed between 5 and 10 miles (8.0 and 16.1 km) outside the Capital Beltway. [3] In Virginia, by the time of a 1965 plan, [5] it was to run through southern and western Fairfax County, crossing the Potomac River at Mason Neck and north of Great Falls, and passing generally west of State Route 123 (Ox Road) and east of SR 645 (Clifton Road, Stringfellow Road, and Lees Corner Road). The straight part of the current Fairfax County Parkway between south of Franklin Farm Road and north of Baron Cameron Avenue is built where the beltway would have been. [6] [7] By contrast, a 1964 plan proposed by a consultant for Prince William County showed a 162-mile (261 km) freeway passing by Quantico, Manassas, Leesburg, Poolesville, upper Montgomery County, Fort Meade, southeastern Prince George's County, and La Plata. [8] [9]
The original proposed routing in Maryland was south and east of the current Intercounty Connector alignment. [10] The new route was motivated in part by a desire to move the routing of the proposed bridge over the Potomac River upstream from the area of River Bend to Watkins Island. [11] Virginia residents and the United States Department of the Interior objected to the proposed bridge over the Potomac River because they wanted to create state and federal parks along the river in order to protect sugar maple trees, vegetation, and bald eagles. Because of these concerns, the Maryland State Roads Commission moved the proposed Outer Beltway to a route north of Rockville and eliminated a new bridge crossing the Potomac River. [3]
The Montgomery County Planning Board accepted the state's newly proposed route in 1970, but the Montgomery County Council rejected it, and Prince George's County and Virginia dropped it from their plans. [3] During the 1970s, attention was focused on the Metrorail system, and environmental concerns temporarily pushed the Outer Beltway onto the back burner. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the plan was revived as the Western Transportation Corridor in Virginia, the route was shifted further west. [12]
In 1975, the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments endorsed a request from the State Highway Administration "for federal support of a $1.1 million planning and engineering study of the first 8-mile [13 km] segment of the road" (then called the Outer Beltway), [3] which was to "run from the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Beltsville westward to a point near Interstate Rte 70S at Gaithersburg." [13] By 1976, Maryland's Secretary of Transportation no longer supported state financial support of the Outer Beltway, although Montgomery County still supported it in concept. [3] In 1980, the state of Maryland dropped the Washington Outer Beltway from its plans except for the Intercounty Connector. [14]
The Techway is a proposal for a limited-access highway across the Potomac River between Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland. [15] The project's name refers to connecting the high-tech firms in Herndon and Reston, Virginia, with the biotechnology companies in Gaithersburg and Rockville, Maryland. [16] The Techway proposal would construct a limited-access highway and bridge linking Virginia State Route 28 north of Washington Dulles International Airport to the western terminus of I-370 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. To avoid criticism that such a project would encourage urban sprawl, the proponents advocated having very few interchanges on the route and emphasizing its use in making Dulles Airport and the associated office buildings in its vicinity more convenient to residents of northern Montgomery County that currently use the American Legion Memorial Bridge.
In 2000, Congress authorized $2,000,000 to conduct a feasibility study of the Techway. [17] Congressman Frank Wolf, one of the primary sponsors of the study, asked that the study be canceled the next year because homes in his Congressional district would have to be destroyed in order to build the Techway. [17] [18] [19] U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta agreed to cancel the study, saying it would be a waste of money to continue studying a bridge that would never be built. [20] Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore III asked Mineta to reconsider, but the study was cancelled. [21]
In 2004, a Virginia Department of Transportation traffic study of the American Legion Bridge showed that a significant portion of bridge users traveled between points west of that bridge, reviving the Techway concept. [18] In addition, the Techway project was also discussed in connection with Maryland Route 200 that will extend I-370 to the east to US 1. The combination of the Techway and this other extension would go a long way to form a Western Bypass of Washington, D.C. for north-south traffic on I-95. Also in 2004, the Montgomery County Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing any bridge, citing concerns about destruction of existing neighborhoods, damage to parkland along the Potomac River, the need to protect the county's 90,000-acre (360 km2) Agricultural Reserve, [22] and its conflicting with the master plan for Potomac. [23]
As of 2011, the Techway project is not funded and not under active study.
Interstate 66 (I-66) is an Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. As indicated by its even route number, it runs in an east–west direction. Its western terminus is near Middletown, Virginia, at an interchange with I-81; its eastern terminus is in Washington, D.C., at an interchange with U.S. Route 29 (US 20). Much of the route parallels US 29 or State Route 55 (SR 55). I-66 has no physical or historical connection to the famous US 66 which was located in a different region of the United States.
Darnestown is a United States census-designated place (CDP) and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland. The CDP is 17.70 square miles (45.8 km2) with the Potomac River as its southern border and the Muddy Branch as much of its eastern border. Seneca Creek borders portions of its north and west sides. The Travilah, North Potomac, and Germantown census-designated places are adjacent to it, as is the city of Gaithersburg. Land area for the CDP is 16.39 square miles (42.4 km2). The Darnestown CDP has a population of 6,723, while the village of Darnestown is considerably smaller in size and population. Washington, D.C. is about 25 miles (40 km) away.
North Potomac is a census-designated place and unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is located less than 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the Potomac River, and is about 20 miles (32 km) from Washington, D.C. It has a population of 23,790 as of 2020.
Travilah is a United States census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland. It is 17.28 square miles (44.8 km2) located along the north side of the Potomac River, and surrounded by the communities of Potomac, North Potomac, and Darnestown—all census-designated places. It had a population of 11,985 as of the 2020 census.
The Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area is a combined statistical area consisting of the overlapping labor-market region of the cities of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland. The region includes Central Maryland, Northern Virginia, three counties in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and one county in South Central Pennsylvania. It is the most educated, highest-income, and third-largest combined statistical area in the United States, behind only New York-Newark and Los Angeles-Long Beach.
Interstate 370 (I-370) is a 2.54-mile (4.09 km) Interstate Highway spur route off I-270 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to the western end of the Maryland Route 200 toll road at an interchange that provides access to the park and ride lot at the Shady Grove station on the Red Line of the Washington Metro. Despite the number, I-370 does not connect to I-70 itself. The road continues to the west of I-270 as Sam Eig Highway, a surface road. Along the way, I-370 has interchanges with MD 355 and Shady Grove Road. The freeway was completed in the late 1980s to connect I-270 to the Shady Grove station. I-370 was always part of the planned Intercounty Connector but was the only segment to be built at the time. The opening of MD 200 east of I-370 resulted in the truncation of I-370 to the interchange with MD 200 and the redesignation of the road leading into the Shady Grove station as MD 200A.
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Potomac River between the independent city of Alexandria, Virginia, and Oxon Hill in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The original bridge was one of only a handful of drawbridges in the U.S. Interstate Highway System. It contained the only portion of the Interstate system owned and operated by the federal government until construction was completed and it was turned over to the Virginia and Maryland departments of transportation.
The Capital Beltway is a 64-mile (103 km) Interstate Highway in the Washington metropolitan area that surrounds Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and its inner suburbs in adjacent Maryland and Virginia. It is the basis of the phrase "inside the Beltway", used when referring to issues dealing with U.S. federal government and politics. The highway is signed as Interstate 495 (I-495) for its entire length, and its southern and eastern half runs concurrently with I-95.
The Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) is an independent state agency responsible for financing, constructing, operating, and maintaining eight transportation facilities, currently consisting of two toll roads, two tunnels, and four bridges in Maryland. It also provides the Maryland Department of Transportation with financing for other revenue producing transportation projects.
Maryland Route 200, also known as the Intercounty Connector or ICC, is an 18.8-mile-long (30.3 km), six-lane toll road in the U.S. state of Maryland. A controlled-access highway, it connects Gaithersburg in Montgomery County and Laurel in Prince George's County, both of which are suburbs of Washington, D.C. The ICC was one of the most controversial Maryland road projects; opposition to the highway stalled the project for decades, and construction did not begin until 60 years after the highway's initial approval.
The Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway, often shortened to Shirley Highway, consists of a 17.3-mile (27.8 km) portion of Interstates 95 and 395 in the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. Shirley Highway was the first limited-access freeway in Virginia. Begun in 1941, the road was completed from U.S. Route 1 in Colchester, Virginia, just north of Woodbridge, to the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River between Virginia and Washington, D.C. in 1952.
The George Washington Memorial Parkway, colloquially the G.W. Parkway, is a 25-mile-long (40 km) parkway that runs along the south bank of the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, Virginia, northwest to McLean, Virginia, and is maintained by the National Park Service (NPS). It is located almost entirely within Virginia, except for a short portion of the parkway northwest of the Arlington Memorial Bridge that passes over Columbia Island within the District of Columbia.
Interstate 270 (I-270) is a 34.7-mile (55.8 km) auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Maryland that travels between I-495 just north of Bethesda in Montgomery County and I-70 in the city of Frederick in Frederick County. It consists of the 32.6-mile (52.5 km) mainline as well as a 2.1-mile (3.4 km) spur that provides access to and from southbound I-495. I-270 is known as the Washington National Pike, and makes up the easternmost stretch of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway. Most of the southern part of the route in Montgomery County passes through suburban areas around Rockville and Gaithersburg that are home to many biotech firms. This portion of I-270 is up to 12 lanes wide and consists of a local–express lane configuration as well as high-occupancy vehicle lanes that are in operation during peak travel times. North of the Gaithersburg area, the road continues through the northern part of Montgomery County, passing Germantown and Clarksburg as a six- to eight-lane highway with an HOV lane in the northbound direction only. North of here, I-270 continues through rural areas into Frederick County and toward the city of Frederick as a four-lane freeway.
The Fairfax County Parkway, numbered State Route 286, is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia, acting as an arterial route in Fairfax County with a mix of interchanges and signalized and unsignalized intersections. Its alignment runs from southeast to northwest and roughly corresponds to part of the once-proposed Outer Beltway around Washington, D.C. The first segment of the roadway opened in 1987; the road was completed in 2010.
The American Legion Memorial Bridge, also known as the American Legion Bridge and formerly as the Cabin John Bridge, is a bridge carrying Interstate 495 across the Potomac River between Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia in the United States. It is an American Water Landmark. Plummers Island is located immediately downstream of the bridge.
Wisconsin Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs. The southern terminus begins in Georgetown just north of the Potomac River, at an intersection with K Street under the elevated Whitehurst Freeway. The section of Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown was called High Street before the street names in Georgetown were changed in 1895 to conform to those of the L'Enfant Plan for the federal city.
Transportation in the Commonwealth of Virginia is by land, sea and air. Virginia's extensive network of highways and railroads were developed and built over a period almost 400 years, beginning almost immediately after the founding of Jamestown in 1607, and often incorporating old established trails of the Native Americans.
State Route 28 in the U.S. state of Virginia is a primary state highway that traverses the counties of Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier in the U.S. state of Virginia. The route serves as a major artery in the Northern Virginia region, with it being an important two-lane highway in rural Fauquier and Prince William Counties, the main thoroughfare through Manassas and Manassas Park, and a high-capacity freeway through Fairfax and Loudoun Counties.
Maryland Route 355 (MD 355) is a 36.75-mile (59.14 km) north–south road in western central Maryland in the United States. The southern terminus of the route, Wisconsin Avenue, is located in the Bethesda CDP, at the Washington, D.C. border. It continues south into Washington, D.C. as Wisconsin Avenue NW. The northern terminus is just north of an overpass with Interstate 70 (I-70)/U.S. Route 40 (US 40) in the city of Frederick in Frederick County, where the road continues north as Market Street through Frederick towards MD 26.
The Northern Virginia region is served by numerous mediums of transit. Transportation in the region is overseen by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)