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WATF
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New Potomac River Crossings Click here to view The Case for A New Potomac River Crossing (This report is in Adobe PDF format, if you don't have the free Acrobat reader, click here to get it) Click here to view the Skycomp Potomac Crossing Report sponsored by the WATF in 1999. The situation has steadily worsened since then. A new well-positioned, environmentally sound Potomac River crossing between Montgomery County and Northern Virginia could do more to unlock the gridlock on Washington’s highway system than any other single major project. And, the new bridge could be built entirely with tolls, costing the taxpayer nothing. In reality, the Task Force believes that two new Potomac crossings are required west of Washington’s Capital Beltway. The first and most urgent is a local service bridge to link the existing road network in Montgomery County to those in Northern Virginia. Modeling conducted for the Montgomery County Policy Task Force indicated that a new local service bridge was second only to the Inter County Connector in its ability to improve mobility on the entire Montgomery County road system. That is because the American Legion Bridge carrying the Capital Beltway across the Potomac is a chokepoint. Montgomery County citizens commuting to jobs in Northern Virginia cut through local neighborhoods in their effort to reach the Beltway as close to the American Legion Bridge as possible. A new well-positioned, environmentally sound crossing would obviate this need, draining traffic from communities between I-270 and the Potomac River. Between
the American Legion Bridge and the Point of Rocks Bridge north of
Leesburg, the western half of the National Capital Region is divided
by a 35-mile stretch of Potomac River with no crossings other than
Whites Ferry. This is a serious deficiency in the region's transportation
network. The region's 1966 "Wedges and Corridors" plan envisioned
three bridges along this stretch of river, none of which were built.
Instead the region sought to meet the growing travel demand by adding
lanes to the Capital Beltway. As a result, the Capital Beltway,
and in particular the American Legion Bridge, the Woodrow Wilson
Bridge and the Springfield Interchange, have become regional choke
points. An accident at any one backs up traffic disabling large
segments of the region's highway system. |