New Potomac River Crossings - The Techway
The lack of Potomac River bridges in the 35 mile gap between the American Legion and Point of Rocks Bridges is the region's single greatest regional transportation deficiency.
Alliance Position:
Contruct limited access parkway and transit corridor with new Potomac River bridge linking Dulles/Reston with Rockville/Gaithersburg. Carries 100,000 vehicles per day, reduces trip lengths and times and diverts trips from Capital Beltway/American Legion Bridge.
Fundamental River Crossing Facts:
- More than half the region's population now lives outside the Capital Beltway. By 2020 that number will grow to nearly two-thirds.
- Nearly four in ten jobs are located outside the Capital Beltway. By 2020 the percentage will be at least half.
- In the future, two of every three trips in the region will be suburb-to-suburb.
- Yet eight of the region's ten Potomac River bridges are located inside the Beltway.
- A 35-mile gap exists between the American Legion Bridge and the next closest crossing to the north at Point of Rocks. The same gap exists between the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the Governor Nice Bridge to the south.
- The lack of bridges outside the Capital Beltway forces tens of thousands of area residents to make lengthy round-about trips which over the course of a year waste millions of hours of time and gallons of gasoline and harm the region's air quality.
The Techway or Northern Connector:
The single most beneficial regional transportation improvement.
A team of professional transportation planners examined 80 regional highway, bridge and mass transit improvements as part of the Greater Washington Board of Trade¹s 1997 Transportation Study.
Their conclusion: A limited access parkway and bridge—a Northern Connector or Techway—would do more to open up the region's gridlocked transportation network than any other individual improvement, by eliminating the long horseshoe-shaped travel pattern between Gaithersburg/Rockville and Dulles/Reston, diverting traffic from existing corridors, and providing a suburb-to-suburb mass transit link.
To learn more about the Northern Crossing/Techway, click on the links below
For past Alliance Alerts regarding the Techway, click here.