Posts about Freeways

I-66 looking westbound from Ohio St.

In the photo at right, you can see the (semi) vegetated median between the left shoulder and the Metrorail tracks. It is being partially removed to make room for the additional roadway width.

You can see the demolition of the median in the top image.

The Custis Trail passes under I-66 along this stretch of highway.  At the point were it crosses underneath there are three bridges: one for each direction of traffic and one for the Metrorail tracks. The westbound bridge is being widened.

To accommodate pedestrian and bicycle traffic during construction, VDOT has constructed a structure for protection (below). There have been occasional detours while work is being done here. The detour is well marked and only slightly longer.

Once the bridge is widened, there will be less daylight at this point. Although there is some relatively inadequate lighting now, it may need to be upgraded as part of the projects.

According to the project's entry in the 2030 Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan, the main motives for the project are to reduce "recurring congestion, support the economic vitality of the metropolitan area, increase the safety of all users, increase the accessibility of people and freight, and to promote efficient system management and operation."

Furthermore, the project will ostensibly enable the corridor to serve as an efficient emergency evacuation route. But the suggestion that this will improve the road as an emergency evacuation route is just silly. The capacity of I-66 for evacuation will not be increased by adding a lane for a mile and a half. This language is likely a holdover from the arguments used for widening the entire length of I-66 inside the Beltway.

Once the "spot improvements" are all in place, there's a good chance political pressure to widen the relatively short remaining sections will grow very strong, and VDOT will eventually prevail. It will be interesting to see how long that takes.

The "ramp spaghetti" in front of the Kennedy Center, the freeway under Juarez Circle, the ramps to the Whitehurst, and Rock Creek create a big barrier between Foggy Bottom and the waterfront, and many small park segments many of which are inaccessible or underutilized.

The plan includes new pedestrian connections across Rock Creek and the Potomac, and suggests decking some of the freeway ramps to the Whitehurst to build better parks. It also resurrects the Kennedy Center's ideas to cover the ramps between it and E Street to connect it to the neighborhood.

Of course, covering freeways is expensive, or we'd do it all the time. That freeway is also wider than it needs to be, since it was originally built to continue up along Florida Avenue or K Street. Some of the ramps could probably come down instead of being decked over.

Besides improving the waterfront access, DePillis reports that the plan includes a new entrance to Foggy Bottom Metro, benches at Juarez Circle, a Native American cultural center, and another performing arts center near the Kennedy Center. DePillis couldn't post the entire plan, but we look forward to seeing more!