Guide to the
Capital Beltway
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Capital Beltway
History
The Capital Beltway is the 64-mile-long Interstate
freeway that encircles Washington, D.C., passing through Virginia
and Maryland, carrying the Interstate I-495 designation throughout,
and carrying the overlapping Interstate I-95 designation on the
eastern portion of the Beltway.
Introduction
Formal planning for the Beltway began in 1950, and it was included
as part of the national Interstate Highway System in the Federal
Aid Highway Act of 1956 (which authorized the construction of
a 41,000-mile national system of Interstate highways), and construction
of the Beltway began in 1957. The most commonly used planning
name for the highway was the Washington Circumferential Highway,
and in June 1960 the highway was officially named "Capital
Beltway" by both states. The I-495 Capital Beltway was fully
completed when its final Maryland segment was opened to traffic
on August 17, 1964.
The Beltway made its first formal appearance on regional planning
documents, when it appeared on maps and in a one-sentence reference
in the 1950 “Comprehensive Plan” for the Washington
area, by the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (NCPPC).
This document was published in 1952. The Maryland - National Capital
Planning Commission (M-NCPC) approved the entire concept. In 1954
the planning board of Fairfax County, Virginia, approved a master
highway plan that included the beltway, thus completing the official
local approvals of the NCPPC plan for the beltway.
The Capital Beltway is 63.8 miles long, with 22.1 miles in Virginia,
and 41.7 miles in Maryland. When originally completed, the Beltway
was six lanes wide (three each way) for 49.3 miles between I-95
in Virginia, around the south, east and north of Washington, to
the Virginia terminus of the northern Potomac River bridge, and
the Beltway was four lanes wide (two each way) for 14.5 miles
between the northern Potomac River bridge and I-95 at Springfield,
Virginia. So all of the 41.7 miles of the Beltway in Maryland,
including both Potomac River bridges, had six lanes; and in Virginia,
7.6 miles of the Beltway had six lanes and 14.5 miles had four
lanes. All 33.7 miles of the Beltway east of the two I-95 junctions,
had six lanes. The above lengths are to the tenth of a mile, and
for convenience sake, in most places in this article, lengths
are rounded to the nearest mile.
In the span of 1972 to 1992, through various widening projects,
nearly the entire Beltway was widened to eight lanes (four each
way), including the entire 14.5 mile section in Virginia that
was originally four lanes. In 1972, Maryland completed Beltway
widening to eight lanes (four each way) between MD-210 Indian
Head Highway and MD-97 Georgia Avenue, a distance of 29 miles.
In 1977, Virginia completed Beltway widening to eight lanes between
US-1 Jefferson Davis Highway and VA-193 Georgetown Pike, a distance
of 21 miles. In 1990, Maryland completed Beltway widening to eight
lanes between MD-97 Georgia Avenue and I-270/MD-355, a distance
of 4 miles. In 1991-92, Maryland and Virginia completed Beltway
widening to eight lanes between I-270 Spur and VA-193, a distance
of 5 miles; this included the American Legion Memorial Bridge
and approaches to each interchange closest to the river, which
was widened to 10 lanes. The 3 miles of Beltway between I-270/MD-355
and I-270 Spur is adequate at six lanes, as the traffic volume
is about 1/2 of that of the adjoining sections of the Beltway.
The only other Beltway segment not widened to at least eight lanes,
was the southern Potomac River bridge (Woodrow Wilson Bridge),
and 1/2 mile of Beltway on either end of the bridge, which was
built with six lanes (three each way), although widening is now
under construction and the Beltway will be reconstructed to a
10- to 12-lane highway for 7.5 miles between west of VA-241 Telegraph
Road and east of MD-210 Indian Head Highway, including constructing
a new 12-lane Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
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Location
and Design of Capital Beltway
Maryland and Virginia highway officials needed to
directly coordinate on the task of determining the location of
the two Potomac River bridges for the proposed circumferential
highway that would completely bypass the District of Columbia
and Arlington, and these two locations were conceptually determined
as far back as the early 1930s in studies by committees of highway
officials and professional planners from Washington, Maryland
and Virginia, for proposed bypasses around Washington; and these
two crossings were proposed to be a bridge at Alexandria and a
bridge east of Great Falls, Virginia. These bridges needed to
cross the Potomac River at or near to a right angle to minimize
the length of the bridge as much as feasible, and they needed
to be located at a place where each state could build a high-speed
highway approach to each bridge. The rest of the circumferential
highway was generally planned independently by each state, with
little actual coordination between the states. The proposed Washington
circumferential highway was formally approved locally in the actions
in 1950 by the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (NCPPC),
in 1952 by the Maryland - National Capital Planning Commission
(M-NCPC), and in 1954 by Fairfax County and the City of Alexandria,
and federally as an authorized and funded Interstate highway in
1956, and the approved alignment was fairly similar to what was
ultimately constructed. The Maryland State Roads Commission (SRC)
administered the design, right-of-way acquisition, and construction
of the 41-mile Maryland section of the Beltway; the Virginia Department
of Highways (VDH) administered the design, right-of-way acquisition,
and construction of the 22-mile Virginia section of the Beltway;
and the federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) administered the
design and construction of the one-mile Potomac River bridge (Woodrow
Wilson Memorial Bridge) at Alexandria. The SRC and VDH basically
did operate independently of each other from the final design
phase onward in the development of the Beltway, but at the same
time, after the federal 1956 Interstate Highway System approval,
they had a fairly clear picture of what the other state would
build, as far as the general corridor (say, 1-mile wide corridor)
where the other state would build the Beltway.
The "Yellow Book", formally named the
General Location of National System of Interstate Highways, was
published by the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) in 1955, and it
showed the official preliminary location of the urban Interstate
highways, along with the loop Interstates and spur Interstates
that were in addition to the mainline Interstate highways. The
Yellow Book was provided to members of the U.S. Congress as the
debates were underway that would lead to the enactment of the
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 that authorized the construction
of a national 41,000-mile Interstate Highway System.
Each state built their Beltway segments to the national Interstate
highway standards that were current at that time, with generally
similar design standards, and all of the 64-mile Beltway was built
to full freeway standards (divided highway with at least two lanes
each way, no at-grade crossings, and no adjacent direct land access),
and it was built with six lanes (three each way) except for the
four lane (two each way) 14.5 mile segment in Virginia between
the northern Potomac River crossing and I-95 at Springfield. While
the highway was in final design in the late 1950s, Virginia officials
requested that BPR federal highway officials approve a six-lane
design on the entire 22-mile Virginia section of the Beltway,
but the BPR approved only four lanes on the above 14.5-mile segment,
an action that by the late 1960s was seen by many people to have
been a mistake due to the frequent peak period traffic congestion
that had affected that segment by then, although it can be argued
that when the final design had to be frozen in preparation for
construction in the late 1950s, that the traffic projections justified
no more than four lanes on that segment, given the modest level
of residential and business development that existed at that time
in Northern Virginia. The entire eastern portion of the Beltway
east of I-95 was built with six lanes (three each way), so an
‘I-95 bypass’ section of the Beltway was built with
six lanes from the outset.
The six-lane portion of the Beltway east of the I-95 junctions
actually did have several 1/4-mile-long lane drops from three
lanes to two: where I-295 merged into the Inner Loop immediately
before the Wilson Bridge, where the Inner Loop outer lane became
a collector-distributor (C-D) roadway at US-1 Jefferson Davis
Highway, where the Inner Loop outer lane became a collector-distributor
roadway at VA-241 Telegraph Road, and where the ramps from US-1
merged into the Outer Loop immediately before the Wilson Bridge.
The two locations with C-D roadways at interchanges had the outer
mainline lane exiting into a one-lane C-D roadway, intercepting
the ramps and loops, and the C-D roadway continued on and rejoined
the mainline of the Beltway as the outer lane, so in one respect
there were three directional lanes at these locations. The two
instances of lane drops immediately before the Wilson Bridge did
see the three mainline lanes briefly drop to two lanes so that
the ramp could merge in and become the outer lane. All of these
locations had mainline widening that was completed in 1973 (at
I-295 and US-1) and 1977 (at VA-241) to provide at least three
mainline lanes each way without lane drops.
There is one place still existing where the mainline Beltway roadway
has a lane drop from three lanes to two, for 1/4 mile on the Inner
Loop where the two-lane roadway from southbound I-270 merges into
the Inner Loop roadway of the Beltway near MD-355 Wisconsin Avenue.
Many of the original 38 Beltway interchanges were built with the
cloverleaf design (four ramps and four loops), and some were a
modified cloverleaf design that included one or more semi-directional
(flyover) ramps. Each Interstate interchange (I-95 and I-66 in
Virginia, I-95 and I-295 and both legs of I-270 in Maryland),
was entirely or mostly a semi-directional interchange. A few of
the Beltway interchanges were built with the diamond (four ramps)
design.
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Final
Design of Capital Beltway
Highway agencies and their hired engineering consultants
in both Maryland and Virginia, charted a completely new alignment
for the beltway, because so few inter-suburban roads existed in
the mid-1950s that could have been upgraded to become part of
the route. No Potomac River bridges existed in the Washington
metropolitan area between Virginia and Maryland, so two completely
new Potomac River bridges were required for building a new beltway
which would completely encircle and bypass Washington and Arlington.
Micheal Baker Corporation was the main engineering firm that performed
the final design on segments of the Capital Beltway in Maryland.
Michael Baker by then was a nationally known engineering firm
that had designed many highway and bridge projects. The Maryland
State Roads Commission (SRC) selected Micheal Baker to design
its portion of the Beltway, beginning with the conceptual alignments
drawn in 1952 by the M-NCPC before the state had officially approved
the project. The Pennsylvania-based firm opened a branch office
on the third floor of the new College Park Business Center, in
April 1954. The Baker office in College Park, Maryland, quickly
obtained contracts for many highway projects, from the SRC, the
District of Columbia Department of Highways, and the National
Park Service. By 1957, according to an in-house newsletter, Baker
had completed designs on many Maryland and D.C. projects, and
the design projects underway at that time included 14 miles of
the I-695 Baltimore Beltway, the 45-mile Northeastern Expressway
(I-95 northeast of Baltimore), and 38 miles of roadway and 68
major structures (mainly bridges) on the Washington Circumferential
Highway. The Maryland segment of the beltway was planned to follow
open corridors as much as possible, to avoid heavily developed
areas where possible, and in Prince Georges County it was possible
to avoid heavily developed areas, but in Montgomery County that
was not possible in every area as there were some segments with
heavy impacts to developed areas with many homes and businesses
acquired for the highway right-of-way; and a 2-mile beltway segment
was built through Rock Creek Park over the objections of state
and federal public park agencies, something that probably would
not have been possible after Congressional enactment of the 1969
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as one of the many things
that NEPA did was to make it virtually impossible to build a highway
through major public parkland. The alternative to the Rock Creek
Park alignment would have been to locate the highway on a straighter
alignment about a mile to the north, which would have been advantageous
from a traffic engineering standpoint, but which was effectively
politically impossible as it would have passed through heavily
developed and very affluent residential sections of Bethesda.
After NEPA, it is quite possible that it would not have been possible
to find a feasible location build that segment of the Beltway
if it had not already been built, and that would have left a missing
link in the Beltway between MD-355 Wisconsin Avenue and MD-97
Georgia Avenue.
Howard, Needles, Tammen, and Bergendoff, today named HNTB Corporation,
was the main engineering firm that performed the final design
on segments of the Capital Beltway in Virginia. The New York-based
firm, which had designed several major post-World War II turnpikes
including the New Jersey Turnpike and the Maine Turnpike, was
contracted by the Virginia Department of Highways (VDH) to plan
the alignment of the entire 22 miles of Beltway in Virginia and
to perform the final design of the Beltway between the Woodrow
Wilson Bridge and US-50 Arlington Boulevard. VDH performed the
final design in-house for the Beltway segment between US-50 and
the northern Potomac River bridge. Howard, Needles, Tammen, and
Bergendoff was contracted by VDH in 1956 to perform a location
routing study for Virginia’s entire Interstate highway system,
and regarding the Virginia portion of the Washington circumferential
highway, they wrote that this highway would be “an entirely
new facility, which neither supplements nor replaces any existing
routes”, and that “It is notable that this line follows
virtually the only open corridor through the area. To shift from
this alignment would either involve considerable property damage
to heavily developed areas or require the location of this route
much further from Arlington and the Washington area.”
The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) administered the design
and construction of the 1.1-mile Potomac River bridge (Woodrow
Wilson Memorial Bridge) at Alexandria, and contracted with Howard,
Needles, Tammen, and Bergendoff, to perform the final design of
the bridge.
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Naming
of Capital Beltway
When the final link of the Beltway was completed
and opened to traffic on Monday, August 17, 1964, it had already
been officially named the Capital Beltway, and its route designation
throughout was Interstate I-495. In the years after the proposed
beltway route had officially made its first appearance on the
1950 planning maps of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission
(NCPPC), and the 1952 planning maps of the Maryland - National
Capital Planning Commission (M-NCPC), it had been referred to
by a variety of names, including the Washington Circumferential
Highway, Circumferential Highway, the circumferential, the belt
road, the belt parkway, the inter-county freeway, the inter-county
belt highway, the inter-county belt freeway, and the inter-county
belt parkway. During the construction period of the Beltway, Maryland
and Virginia officials separately made efforts to find a name
which would be easy to speak and which would fit easily on roadway
signs.
The Maryland State Roads Commission (SRC) first proposed the names
"Colonial Beltway" and "Colonial Parkway"
in March 1960, and then decided on the name "Capitol Beltway".
Fairfax County, Virginia officials approved the name "Capital
Ring", but state officials disagreed, as they wanted a name
to honor George Washington or George Mason. Virginia officials
then decided to name its Beltway section "Capitol Beltway",
in agreement with Maryland officials. In the next few months,
various officials and citizens pointed out that the word "capitol"
refers to the building that houses the legislature (which is true
for a state capital or for the U.S. capital), while the word "capital"
refers to the entire capital city; so the proper word to name
a highway that encircles Washington, D.C., would use "capital"
and not "capitol", so on June 22, 1960 the highway was
officially named "Capital Beltway" by both states, and
that has been the official name since then.
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Naming
and Construction of Capital Beltway Potomac River Bridges
The Capital Beltway crosses the Potomac River in two places, a
southern crossing at Alexandria, Virginia, and a northern crossing
near Cabin John, Maryland. Each crossing connects Virginia and
Maryland, and a small mid-span section of the southern bridge
crosses an over-water corner of the District of Columbia. The
closest local road access interchanges on each crossing are, for
the northern crossing, in Montgomery County, Maryland, and in
Fairfax County, Virginia; and for the southern crossing, in the
City of Alexandria, Virginia, and in Prince Georges County, Maryland.
The Virginia approach of the southern crossing is in the City
of Alexandria, as 2/3 mile of the Beltway is in the City of Alexandria
and the rest of the 22-mile Virginia section of the Beltway is
in Fairfax County.
The construction of the original 5,900 foot long southern Potomac
River crossing at Alexandria was authorized by the U.S. Congress
on August 30, 1954, to be built and 100% funded by the federal
government. It was initially named the Jones Point Bridge, and
was officially named the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, on May
22, 1956. Excerpts from "Why is the Woodrow Wilson Memorial
Bridge Named after Woodrow Wilson?", by the Rambler, a historian
of FHWA (Federal Highway Administration).
On August 30, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Public
Law 83-704, "An Act to authorize and direct the construction
of bridges over the Potomac River, and for other purposes."
One provision stated:
The Secretary of the Interior . . . is authorized and directed
to construct, maintain, and operate a six-lane bridge over the
Potomac River, from a point at or near Jones Point, Virginia,
across a certain portion of the District of Columbia, to a point
in Maryland, together with bridge approaches on property owned
by the United States in the State of Virginia.
The sum of $14,925,000 was authorized to be appropriated for the
Jones Point Bridge. However, the cost of the approaches and improvements
to collateral streets and highways was to be borne by the States
of Maryland and Virginia:
On May 22, 1956, President Eisenhower signed Public Law 84-534,
which transferred responsibility for the project to the Secretary
of Commerce, whose Department included the Bureau of Public Roads
(BPR). The same day, the President signed Public Law 84-535, which
renamed the "Jones Point Bridge" the "Woodrow Wilson
Memorial Bridge."
Construction began on the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge in 1958.
The six-lane Potomac River bridge and 3.2 miles of six-lane Beltway
between US-1 Jefferson Davis Highway in Virginia and MD-210 Indian
Head Highway in Maryland, opened to traffic on December 28, 1961.
The bridge is most commonly publicly referred to by the shorthand
name versions of Woodrow Wilson Bridge or Wilson Bridge.
The under construction new twin-span 12-lane Potomac River bridge
for the I-95/I-495 Beltway at Alexandria, will have the same name
as the original bridge, the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge. The
first new 6-lane Woodrow Wilson Bridge was opened to traffic in
two stages in June and July of 2006, and it will be configured
for 3 lanes each way until the 6-lane bridge for the Inner Loop
of the Beltway opens to traffic in mid-2008. The original Woodrow
Wilson Bridge was permanently closed to traffic on Saturday, July
15, 2006. When the new twin-span Woodrow Wilson Bridge is complete
in mid-2008, it will then be jointly owned and administered by
the states of Virginia and Maryland. An agreement was worked out
in August 2001 by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Virginia
and Maryland, to turn over the ownership of the new bridge, when
it is completed, to joint ownership by Virginia and Maryland.
The construction of the Beltway's 1,450-foot-long northern Potomac
River crossing near Cabin John, Maryland, was administered by
the Maryland State Roads Commission (SRC) as a conventional Interstate
highway project. The six-lane Potomac River bridge, and 7.0 miles
of Beltway approaches between VA-7 Leesburg Pike in Virginia and
MD-190 River Road in Maryland, opened to traffic on December 31,
1962. While an impressive bridge in its own right, it is much
shorter than the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge crosses a major shipping channel, while the northern crossing
does not pass over a navigation channel, as the Potomac River
is a shallow rocky river at that point. This northern crossing
Beltway bridge did not have an official name until 1969, but it
was commonly referred to as the Cabin John Bridge, a name that
was "borrowed" from a nearby 200-foot-span stone arch
aqueduct bridge that was opened in 1863 over Cabin John Creek
in Montgomery County, Maryland, and this local bridge is still
an aqueduct as well as carrying 2 lanes of MacArthur Boulevard.
The 50th anniversary of the nation's largest military veterans
organization was the occasion for the expression of Maryland legislative
sentiment to name the Beltway bridge the American Legion Memorial
Bridge, effective May 30, 1969, on Memorial Day. The public was
slow in utilizing the new name, and for many years afterward many
local people still called it the "Cabin John Bridge",
although by the 1990s, it was most commonly publicly referred
to as the American Legion Memorial Bridge, or by the shorthand
name versions of Legion Bridge or American Legion Bridge.
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Construction
of Capital Beltway in Virginia
Construction of the 22-mile Virginia section of
the Capital Beltway began three years after Maryland’s,
in April 1958, on the segment between VA-236 Little River Turnpike
and VA-617 Backlick Road. Construction moved forward within the
next few years on the rest, and there were delays until 1963 on
the segment between VA-7 Leesburg Pike and US-50 Arlington Boulevard
due to difficulties in preparing the contact for a bridge overpass
over the Beltway for the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad
line. There were also difficulties in constructing the Beltway
segment through marshlands along the stream valley of Cameron
Run along the southern border of the City of Alexandria in the
area where the Beltway has interchanges with US-1 Jefferson Davis
Highway and VA-241 Telegraph Road.
The first 6.7 miles of I-495 in Virginia opened to traffic on
December 16, 1961, the section between I-95 Shirley Highway and
US-50 Arlington Boulevard. The 0.8 miles of I-495 in Virginia
between US-1 Jefferson Davis Highway and the state line, along
with the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Maryland segment to MD-210
Indian Head Highway (the segment comprised 3.2 miles in both states),
opened to traffic on December 28, 1961. On December 31, 1962,
4.7 miles of I-495 opened to traffic between the state line at
the northern Potomac River bridge, and the VA-7 Leesburg Pike
interchange, and this segment opening included the 2.3 miles in
Maryland to the MD-190 River Road interchange. The 3.2 miles of
I-495 between US-50 Arlington Boulevard and VA-7 Leesburg Pike
opened to traffic on October 2, 1963. The last 6.7 miles of I-495
in Virginia, between I-95 Shirley Highway and US-1 Jefferson Davis
Highway, opened to traffic on April 2, 1964.
In the April 2, 1964, final segment opening of the 22-mile Virginia
section of the Capital Beltway, the opening ceremonies were held
on the Beltway roadway 1/2 mile west of the I-495/US-1 interchange.
It was another cold, wet and windy day, a seeming hallmark of
Capital Beltway openings, and over 200 attendees listened to speeches
by Virginia Department of Highways Commissioner (agency head)
Douglas B. Fugate, U.S. Bureau of Public Roads Chief Rex Whitton,
and Virginia Governor Albertis Harrison, and music by the 75th
Army Band of Fort Belvoir. This segment opening also marked the
completion of the first Interstate highway statewide in Virginia.
Most of the Capital Beltway was built in areas where the soil
is dry enough and has a high enough content of clay and/or rock
that in its natural state the soil provided a good base for building
a highway. For the most part, the topography and soil geology
of suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia was conducive to standard
highway engineering and construction techniques. The Beltway is
located in two geologic provinces, neither of which was particularly
challenging to road builders. Much of the eastern half of the
Beltway is in the Coastal Plain, which is a gently undulating
plain that extends along the Eastern Seaboard from Mexico to New
Jersey, and it is characterized by tidal estuaries such as rivers
and bays including the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, and the
terrain gradually rises in elevation from the Atlantic Ocean westward
to hills up to about 400 feet above sea level in elevation near
its western boundary. The geologic province immediately to the
west is the Piedmont, which is a band of rolling hills with rocks
just below the surface, running from Alabama to New York, and
its elevations range from sea level to about 1,000 feet above
sea level. The Piedmont is bounded to the west by the Triassic
Lowland province. The boundary between the Coastal Plain and the
Piedmont generally bisects the District of Columbia and the Capital
Beltway from southwest to northeast. The topography and geology
of both provinces posed relatively few challenges to the designers
of the Beltway.
There were difficulties in constructing the six lane (three lanes
each way) Beltway segment through marshlands along the stream
valley of Cameron Run near the southern border of the City of
Alexandria in the area where the Beltway has interchanges with
US-1 Jefferson Davis Highway and VA-241 Telegraph Road. Like many
stream valleys, the soil has a high amount of organic material
and has a high water content, so the soil is compressible and
in its natural state is inadequate for supporting a highway. The
natural channel of Cameron Run meandered north and south of the
Beltway right-of-way between VA-241 and US-1, and on the mid-section
of that segment, the channel of Cameron Run was relocated to a
straight channel alongside the south edge of the Beltway. On large
parts of that Beltway segment, borrow excavation (select soil
backfill) was deposited to provide the base of the Beltway roadways.
Part of the ramps and roadways at the I-495/US-1 interchange were
built on bridge structure over marshlands and open water.
The above design, like building the 2-mile Beltway segment through
Rock Creek Park in Montgomery County, Maryland, most likely would
have been impossible to build after enactment of the 1969 National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), with its stringent federal environmental
standards. Unfortunately, these kind of highway designs were commonplace
all over the U.S. before NEPA, as the rationale was that it enabled
urban and suburban highway segments to be built in places that
did not displace houses and businesses; engineers and planners
routinely routed highways through areas which would provide the
least resistance, and in practical terms that often meant sites
that were occupied by minorities or the poor, or riverfronts or
stream valleys or parks that housed few or no residents or business
owners to complain. After NEPA, many such highway segments were
able to be built without filling in marshlands and streams, but
only by placing the highway on bridge structures that passed over
those natural resources, even though financially that made the
highway segment much more expensive to build than if it was built
on earthen fill. Such a post-NEPA design would have placed most
of the 1.3 miles of Beltway between VA-241 and US-1 on bridge
structure, from about 1/4 mile east of VA-241 to 1/4 mile east
of US-1, plus nearly all of the I-495/US-1 interchange; and the
stream channel of Cameron Run would have been left in its natural
place.
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Pavement
Types on Capital Beltway
Asphalt concrete, commonly known simply as asphalt,
also sometimes called blacktop or hot-mix asphalt, is a composite
material commonly used for construction of highway pavement and
parking lots. It consists of a liquid asphalt binder and mineral
aggregate (generally gravel plus sand) mixed together at about
300 degrees Fahrenheit (about 150 degrees Celsius) then laid down
in layers and compacted.
Concrete is a construction material that consists of cement (commonly
Portland cement), aggregate (generally gravel plus sand), water,
and admixtures. Concrete solidifies and hardens after mixing and
placement, due to a chemical process known as hydration. The water
reacts with the cement, which bonds the other components together,
creating a stone-like material. Portland cement concrete is also
called hydraulic cement concrete. The concrete utilized on highway
roadways and bridges, is reinforced internally with a grid of
steel bars, and the term ‘reinforced concrete’ refers
to concrete that is reinforced (given additional strength) in
this manner.
Today the entire Beltway mainline roadway (excepting some bridges)
has a riding surface of asphalt concrete. The bridges in the Beltway
mainline all have a roadway deck constructed of reinforced Portland
cement concrete, and on many of them that is the vehicle riding
surface, although some of them have an asphalt concrete surface
layer that is the riding surface. The current Woodrow Wilson Bridge
and American Legion Bridge have a riding surface of reinforced
Portland cement concrete.
Along most of the length of the Beltway, there is an original
reinforced Portland cement concrete pavement underneath the asphalt
concrete surface, and that original concrete pavement has a slab
thickness of 8 to 9 inches, depending on the section, and that
was the original riding surface; and after several decades of
wear it was overlaid with asphalt concrete. When overlaid, the
Portland cement concrete pavement was repaired first to fix the
damaged sections, and then several layers of asphalt concrete
totaling at least 5 to 6 inches in depth was placed on top of
the Portland cement concrete pavement, resulting in a strong smooth
pavement structure.
The original Virginia Beltway pavement types are as follows. The
21-mile Virginia section of the Beltway between the American Legion
Bridge and VA-241 Telegraph Road, had reinforced Portland cement
concrete pavement. When it was widened to eight lanes (four each
way) 1974-1977, the reinforced Portland cement concrete pavement
was widened the necessary width for the new traffic lanes, the
shoulders were underlaid with 6 inch depth plain Portland cement
concrete, and the entire roadway and shoulders were overlaid with
a 6 inch depth asphalt concrete riding surface (per review of
construction plans by Roads to the Future author and observation
during construction). The 1.3 mile Virginia section of the Beltway
between VA-241 Telegraph Road and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was
originally constructed with asphalt concrete, due to the fact
that the segment was built on earthen embankment fill through
a stream valley and marshlands, and the principle was that would
be a better design to handle any settling of the roadway by adding
a few inches depth of asphalt concrete overlay in a section that
settled.
The original Maryland Beltway pavement types are as follows. The
31-mile Maryland section of the Beltway between the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge and MD-97 Georgia Avenue, originally had reinforced Portland
cement concrete pavement, and when the 29-mile section between
MD-210 Indian Head Highway and MD-97 Georgia Avenue was widened
from six lanes (three each way) to eight lanes (four each way)
in 1970-1972, one reinforced Portland cement concrete lane each
way was added on the inside of each directional Beltway roadway.
This section of the Beltway was overlaid with asphalt concrete
with at least 5 to 6 inches in depth, in the 1980s. The 10-mile
Maryland section of the Beltway between MD-97 Georgia Avenue and
the American Legion Bridge, originally had asphalt concrete pavement,
and the later widening projects utilized the same paving material.
The shoulders on the Maryland section of the Beltway have always
utilized asphalt concrete throughout.
The various connecting roads and highways that interchange with
the Beltway, had the interchanges and connecting roads built along
with the Beltway. The ramps typically were constructed with the
same pavement material as that section of the mainline Beltway.
The connecting roads and highways were in most cases constructed
with asphalt pavement.
The current Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project (2000-2011) includes
the widening of 7.5 miles of the Beltway to 10 to 12 lanes, between
west of VA-241 Telegraph Road and east of MD-210 Indian Head Highway,
and the all land roadways and ramps in this segment will be completely
replaced with new roadways and ramps, and the land roadway paving
material will be full-depth asphalt concrete pavement, throughout
the project. All bridges on the project will be replaced with
new bridges, and the riding surface of the roadway decks will
be reinforced Portland cement concrete.
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Completion
of Capital Beltway
The final link of the Capital Beltway, in Montgomery
County and Prince Georges County, Maryland, was completed and
opened to traffic on Monday, August 17, 1964, the 24.7-mile section
between MD-355 Wisconsin Avenue and MD-4 Pennsylvania Avenue Extended.
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Route
Numbering of Capital Beltway
Following the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 by
Congress that authorized the construction of the national 41,000-mile
Interstate Highway System, including the proposed 64-mile-long
Washington circumferential highway, the entire beltway was granted
the Interstate Route I-495 designation by federal and state highway
officials.
Three-digit Interstate routes have a leading digit with the last
two digits being the mainline route that it supplements, so I-x95
routes would have routes such as the ones in Virginia, I-195,
I-295, I-395 and I-495. An odd-number leading digit signifies
a spur route off a mainline route (examples are I-195 and I-395).
An even-number leading digit signifies a loop around a city (examples
are I-295 and I-495), or a branch route connecting two Interstate
highways (an example is I-270 in Maryland). Three-digit Interstate
route numbers can duplicate, but not in the same state.
The completed Beltway was designated I-495 throughout from 1964
to 1977. In 1977, the eastern portion became I-95, and Shirley
Highway inside the Beltway was changed from I-95 to I-395. This
was done because of the cancellation of proposed I-95 from New
York Avenue in the District of Columbia northward into Prince
George's County, Maryland, to I-495. The I-95 designation was
moved to the eastern half of the I-495 Beltway in 1977, and I-495
was removed from the eastern half of the Beltway, and I-395 replaced
the I-95 designation on Shirley Highway from I-495 to the 14th
Street Bridge, on the 14th Street Bridge itself, on the Southwest
Freeway in D.C. and on the Center Leg Freeway in D.C. Today's
I-395 is the former segment of I-95 inside of the Beltway.
Many regional motorists never fully adjusted to having a full-circle
beltway with halves with two different numbers (I-95 and I-495).
In 1991, the I-495 designation was applied back to the eastern
portion of the beltway, so the whole Beltway is again I-495, and
the eastern portion is I-95 also (it carries both I-95 and I-495).
The Beltway has the clockwise direction (as in looking at a map
of the Beltway) signed as the Inner Loop, and the counter-clockwise
direction is signed as the Outer Loop.
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Exit
Numbering on Capital Beltway
The exit (interchange) numbering on the Beltway
began with a sequential system in 1964 when the Beltway was fully
complete, and it was a somewhat hybrid system from 1980 to 2000,
and in 2000 was finalized to a fully milepost-based system that
should last permanently. The original exit numbering system was
sequential numbering from 1 to 38 (there were no “number
gaps” except for future Exit 22 that later was canceled),
starting at Exit 1 at US-1 in Alexandria, running clockwise as
viewed on a map from above, advancing around the south, west,
north and east of Washington, ending at Exit 38 at I-295 near
the Wilson Bridge.
The official decision in 1977 to cancel the remaining unbuilt
segments of I-95 in the District of Columbia and Maryland, and
the concurrent decision to move the I-95 designation to the eastern
portion of the Beltway, was the cause of the need to renumber
the exits on the Beltway.
The period of the 1980s and later was also a time when many states
changed their Interstate highway exit numbering from sequential
numbering to milepost-based numbering. Sequential exit numbering
means that the exit numbers increase consecutively (1, 2, 3, 4,
etc., in sequence) one by one along the highway. Milepost-based
exit numbering means that each exit number is the same as the
number of the nearest milepost, and while the numbers are not
consecutive (for example if four exits in sequence were at mileposts
7, 9, 11 and 15, then those would be the respective exit numbers),
milepost-based exit numbering has widespread public support because
it makes it easy to compute how many miles one needs to travel
from where they are currently, to reach their destination exit,
although the fact that exit numbers usually start over at zero
at the beginning of each state border, removes that advantage
for an inter-state trip.
Maryland began instituting milepost-based exit numbering on its
Interstate highways about 1980, and specifically on the Capital
Beltway in 1980. The federal standard for exit numbering on Interstate
highways, is for the numbering to advance from south to north
on north-south highways, and from west to east on east-west highways.
Since the eastern portion of the Beltway was I-95 alone at that
point, Maryland posted milepost zero at the state border at Alexandria,
and advanced the milepost numbers along I-95 all the way to Delaware.
At the I-95/I-495 junction north of Washington at Milepost 27,
Maryland continued that same increasing milepost sequence from
27 to 42 along the I-495 Beltway all the way to the Virginia shoreline
at the Legion Bridge near Cabin John, Maryland. Each Beltway interchange
in Maryland was given milepost-based exit numbering, so from 1980
and onward there were exits 2 through 41 in Maryland, running
counterclockwise as viewed on a map from above. This is opposite
of the Beltway’s original clockwise exit numbering system.
Virginia’s Beltway exits remained in the original system
of running clockwise sequentially from 1 to 14, so the two states
had their exit numbers advancing in the opposite direction, and
each state had a Beltway exit for the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, and
11. Maryland’s Beltway exit numbering system has not changed
since 1980.
In 1981, Virginia renumbered its exits 1 through 4 to 58 through
61 to be consistent with the rest of its sequential exit numbering
on its I-95, and while this eliminated the duplication of Beltway
exit numbers 2, 3 and 4 in both states, it created three unrelated
exit numbering schemes on the Beltway. A 1981 Washington Post
editorial called this an “atrocity,” that resulted
in “two unrelated sets of Virginia Beltway exit numbers,
going in opposite directions,” and “two unrelated
sets of exit numbers (between Maryland and Virginia), going in
opposite directions.” A couple years later Virginia reverted
those exit numbers back to 1 through 4 to reduce the Beltway exit
numbering schemes back to two.
In 1991, the two states decided to apply I-495 back to the I-95
eastern portion of the Beltway. In 1987, the two states agreed
to post along the Beltway signs with a Capital Beltway logo in
red, white and blue, with an image of the U.S. Capitol building
surrounded by a circle, and the Beltway terms “Inner Loop”
and “Outer Loop” came into use then, “Inner
Loop” for the clockwise-running roadway, and “Outer
Loop” for the counterclockwise-running roadway. Looking
at the Beltway on a map from above, the loop of the clockwise-running
roadway is inside of the loop of the counterclockwise-running
roadway, hence the terms “inner” and “outer”
for the concentric roadways of the Beltway.
Virginia did not convert its statewide Interstate highway exit
numbering system from sequential numbering to milepost-based numbering
until beginning in 1992, and the Beltway exits were renumbered
in 2000. At that time it was decided to continue Maryland’s
I-495 mileposting from Maryland’s Milepost 42 at the Virginia
shoreline at the Legion Bridge near Cabin John, to a new Milepost
57 at the I-95/I-395/I-495 Springfield Interchange; and to continue
I-95’s mileposting (170 through 177) along the I-95/I-495
section of the Beltway from I-95/I-395/I-495 Springfield Interchange
to the state border at the Wilson Bridge at Alexandria.
When exit numbers were changed in these various renumberings,
new exit number signs were installed, and each exit changed would
carry an “Old Exit nn” sign for a year after the change,
to assist motorists in adjusting to the change.
The current Beltway exit numbering system should be permanent,
as it follows the milepost-based Interstate highway exit numbering
system in both states, which should be permanent. There is no
foreseeable reason why the Beltway exit numbering system should
see any more changes (the future completion of the canceled original
downtown route of I-95 through the District of Columbia is not
impossible but is highly unlikely). It is a shame that it took
from 1980 to 2000 to fully change the Beltway’s original
sequential exit numbering system based on I-495 alone, to the
current milepost-based exit numbering system based on I-495 and
its eastern I-95 overlap. This underscores the inadequate Beltway
coordination between the two states, at times, that has impacted
the management of what is one metropolitan circumferential freeway.
It could be argued that Virginia was remiss for not immediately
following Maryland’s 1980 change in its Beltway exit numbering
system, by installing the same system on its portion of the Beltway,
but it could also be argued that Maryland was presumptuous for
imposing milepost-based exit numbering on its section of the Beltway
at a time when Virginia was not interested in imposing milepost-based
exit numbering on its Interstate highways (and wasn’t until
starting 12 years later, which was Virginia’s prerogative).
The Capital Beltway when completed in 1964 had 37 interchanges,
and in 1971 that number increased to 38 when I-95 in Maryland
was completed to the Beltway. These two pairs of Beltway junctions
were each defined as a single interchange in the original exit
numbering system -- I-70S and MD-355, and MD-190 and Cabin John
Parkway; and in Maryland's exit renumbering, each in those pairs
has a separate exit number; and it is a matter of definition as
to whether each of those pairs should be considered to be one
interchange or two interchanges. The 4 interchanges marked in
the table below as "n/a" for Original Number, did not
exist when the Beltway was completed in 1964, were not planned
at that time, and were all constructed after 1990. The Beltway
as exit-numbered in 2007 has 44 interchanges.
CURRENT # / Exit Name / PREVIOUS #
2 Interstate 295 Anacostia Freeway / (future)
National Harbor 38
3 MD-210 Indian Head Highway 37
4 MD-414 Saint Barnabas Road 37A
7 MD-5 Branch Avenue 36
9 MD-337 Allentown Road / Andrews Air Force Base 35
11 MD-4 Pennsylvania Avenue 34
13 Ritchie-Marlboro Road (n/a)
15 MD-214 Central Avenue 33
16 Arena Drive / FedEx Field (n/a)
17 MD-202 Landover Road 32
19 US-50 John Hanson Highway 31
20 MD-450 Annapolis Road (original name was Defense Highway)
30
22 Baltimore-Washington Parkway 29
23 MD-201 Kenilworth Avenue 28
24 Metrorail Greenbelt Station (n/a)
25 US-1 Baltimore-Washington Boulevard 27
27 Interstate 95 26
28 MD-650 New Hampshire Avenue 25
29 MD-193 University Boulevard 24
30 US-29 Colesville Road 23
- Northern Parkway (unbuilt) 22
31 MD-97 Georgia Avenue 21
33 MD-185 Connecticut Avenue 20
34 MD-355 Wisconsin Avenue / Rockville Pike 19
35 Interstate 270 (originally was I-70S) 19
36 MD-187 Old Georgetown Road 18
38 Interstate 270 Spur (originally was I-270) 17
39 MD-190 River Road 16
40 Cabin John Parkway 16
41 Clara Barton Parkway (originally MD's George Washington
Memorial Parkway) 15
43 George Washington Memorial Parkway 14
44 VA-193 Georgetown Pike 13
45 Dulles Airport Access Road and VA-267 Dulles Toll Road
12
46 VA-123 Chain Bridge Road 11
47 VA-7 Leesburg Pike 10
49 Interstate 66 9
50 US-50 Arlington Boulevard 8
51 VA-650 Gallows Road 7
52 VA-236 Little River Turnpike 6
54 VA-620 Braddock Road 5
57 Interstates 95 and 395 - Shirley Highway 4
173 VA-613 Van Dorn Street 3
174 Eisenhower Avenue Connector (n/a)
176 VA-241 Telegraph Road 2
177 US-1 Jefferson Davis Highway 1
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Speed
Limits on Capital Beltway
Since the 1973 National Maximum Speed Limit act
was enacted, which mandated a maximum speed limit in the U.S.
of 55 miles per hour, no segment of the Capital Beltway has had
a higher speed limit than 55 mph. In 1987 the NMSL was modified
to allow 65 mph on rural Interstate highways, and the Beltway
was ruled to be in a metropolitan area (and not rural) and still
subject to a federal maximum of 55 mph. In 1995 the U.S. Congress
abolished the national maximum speed limit, and returned the setting
of speed limits back to state control as was the case before 1973,
thus making it possible to have higher speed limits on the Beltway.
The I-495 Capital Beltway opened in 1964 to much optimism and
enthusiasm. By 1968 and 1969, traffic volumes of cars and trucks
had grown to the point where the highway was always well-used,
with traffic volumes during peak hours approaching the capacity
of the highway on various sections, and the maximum segment volume
then was about 80,000 vehicles per day.
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Capital
Beltway Operation
Today much of the Beltway carries over 200,000
vehicles per day, and even with major widening projects between
1972 and 1992, making nearly the entire Beltway eight lanes wide
(four each way), much of the Beltway experiences major congestion
for major periods of each day.
Wiki
Capital Beltway Page
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"HOT"
Lanes Contruction Information
HOT lanes are tolled lanes that operate alongside
existing highway lanes to provide users with a faster and more
reliable travel option. Buses, carpools (HOV-3), motorcycles and
emergency vehicles will have free access to HOT lanes. Drivers
with fewer than three occupants can choose to pay to access the
lanes.Tolls for the HOT lanes will change according to traffic
conditions to regulate demand for the lanes and keep them congestion
free - even during peak hours.
The I-495 Virginia HOT Lanes Project will deliver the most significant
enhancements to the Beltway since its opening in 1964. The project
includes two new lanes in each direction from the Springfield
Interchange to just north of the Dulles Toll Road and the replacement
of more than $260 million in aging infrastructure. This includes
replacing more than 50 bridges, overpasses, and major interchanges.
Here are some links to past articles about "HOT"
lanes from your Leewood Times & Leewood.us
VDOT
Holds Meetings about HOT lanes on Interstate 95 & 395
NEW
Hot Lanes on I-495
Dulles
Metrorail in on Track and Underway
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Telegraph
Road Construction Project
Telegraph Rd. Interchange final component of $2.5B
Wilson Bridge Project
Highway construction crews are out in force for
several years of work to upgrade the Telegraph Road interchange
at the beltway, the final major contract of the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge Project.
The $236 million effort to reconstruct the interchange
may take drivers a while to get used to the lane shift. Outer
loop traffic now begins merging from four lanes down to three
lanes about a mile sooner that it used to, at the Eisenhower Avenue
connector exit instead of Telegraph Road.
The Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded a
$236.4-million contract to rebuild the I-95 interchange at Telegraph
Road. Construction will take five years to complete. Building
an improved Telegraph Road Interchange is the final component
of the overall $2.52-billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project. Overall,
the contract will build 11 ramps and bridges, five box culvert
extensions, drainage improvements, retaining walls, noise walls,
pedestrian paths, traffic systems, lighting, signage, landscaping
and an environmental mitigation project at the Cameron Run Wetlands.
The Telegraph Road Interchange project involves
the complete reconstruction of the existing interchange to include
ramp improvements, bridge widening/lengthening and widening of
the I-95/I-495 mainline roadway section from 2.08 miles west of
Telegraph Road to 0.5 miles to the east. Improvements along Telegraph
Road will include roadway reconstruction, bridge reconstruction,
intersection improvements and utility relocations from Duke Street
on the north to Lenore Lane to the south.
During construction the Telegraph Road Interchange
project will be closely coordinated with several additional mega-projects
in Northern Virginia, including the building of high-occupancy-toll
lanes on I-95 and I-495 and widening I-95. Business and utility
relocations as well as ground strengthening work were completed
in advance of the interchange reconstruction.
The work is being carried out by Corman-Kiewit Constructors,
a joint venture of Corman Construction and Kiewit Corp.
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Beltway TRAFFIC links
VDOT
Traffic Cameras with Interactive Map
The above link is a great resource for you to use
before you hit the roads.
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Dulles
Metro Project
The Federal Transit Administration has approved
the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to advance the
Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project extension from East Falls Church
to Wiehle Avenue into Final Design. The FTA said the project now
meets the "threshold for entry into Final Design" and
outlines the process for obtaining a Full Funding Grant Agreement.
The $159 million in federal funds which has been
released for the project can be used for:
Right-of-way acquisitions
Reimbursement of third party preliminary engineering costs
Continuing with utility relocations
Final Design Work
Project administration
Maintenance of traffic efforts
Engineering and design of rail cars
Use the above link for more information about the
Dulles Metro Project.
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Help sometimes comes at a price or with a hidden
agenda, but our helpful guides have neither. We hope that the
information in our Leewood Times Guides
give you starting points and focus. Our goal is to assist you
in making informed decisions.
Here are the links to all the Leewood
Times Guides…
345 Money
Saving Tips
Leewood Times
75 Money Saving Travel Tips
Leewood Times
2008 Winter Guide
Leewood
Times Bar-B-Que Tips & Tricks
Leewood Times
Employment Guide
Leewood
Times Energy Saving Tips Winter
/ Summer
Leewood
Times Guide to Credit Repair
Leewood
Times Guide to Fall Festivals
Leewood
Times Guide to Going Green
Leewood
Times Guide to Holiday Entertaining
Leewood
Times Guide to Local Farmers Markets
Leewood Times
Guide to New Years Resolutions
Leewood Times
Guide to Seasonal Allergies & Pollen
Leewood
Times Guide to Spring Cleaning
Leewood
Times Guide to the Capital Beltway
Leewood Times Guide to
Volunteering
Leewood Times Guide to Voting
Leewood
Times Spring Yard Maintenance Tips
Leewood Times
Summer Fun Guide
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