They need to go back to the US 17 to US 15, Fredericksburg, Warrenton, Point of Rocks, Frederick plan, make it toll, limit exits to an average of 8-10 miles, maybe extend Sam Eig due west to PoR.
It depends on what you percieve the purpose of the route to be.
If it is to provide a bypass to the heavy traffic area around DC and keep through traffic (such as trucks) away from the core of the area this route is one of two that could serve the purpose. If the intent is to relieve daily commuter traffic between residential areas one one side of the river and jobs on the other (The I 270 and Dulles Tollroad corriders being the concentration points of both) than a route out as far as Point of Rocks does not work, you need a high volume crossing (not a barge on a string) no further out than Balls B and prefferably downstream of that (Connect Cascades Parkway in VA to Seneca Rd and on to Sam Eig in MD)
I would go for connecting Sam Eig Highway to Va. 28.
I've been commuting in this area for over 25 years lived here for my entire life except for 9 years in the USAF and there has never been concensus on where river crossings should be.
I disagree. There
was consensus on this in the 1960's, when the Washington Outer Beltway was planned.
Then the voters of Montgomery County, Maryland elected a slate of no-growth/slow growth people to its County Council, led by the late Idamae Garrott. Garrott was to spend the rest of her life lobbying against any and all new highways - first on the County Council, then in the Maryland House of Delegates and finally in the Maryland State Senate. She died in 1999 thinking that she had won the battle of the InterCounty Connector.
She used to boast that she personally went to meetings of the Fairfax County and Loudoun County Boards of Supervisors to lobby them to cooperate in her effort to remove highways from the planning maps. And in the case of the Outer Beltway and the Rockville Facility (part of which was recently completed as the Montrose Parkway), she got away with it.
I believe it becomes a power struggle between the VA and MD political machines to see who can force their will on the other rather than trying to resolve the issue. I would be happy if they would just continue US-15 Straight north from the last big turn before the river (Where the now Valero gas Station is before 15 enters 'the gulley') across the eastern tip of Heaters Island, around the east side of Point of rocks and reconnect with current 15 north of the traffic circle at Rt 464. That would avoid most of the houses built in the last 20 years (would have been better if it had been done 20 years ago) Then we would only need to build around Lucketts and put a full interchange at US-340. Oh amnd install good deer fencing. There are times I think you need a hunting license to drive that road at night!
U.S. 15 is too far west, and the right-of-way does not exist in Loudoun County to significantly upgrade the road, especially near Lucketts and approaching the Point-of-Rocks Bridge.