Now, with Virginia widening the west side of the Beltway for the high-occupancy toll lanes, the bridge just north of the new lanes may be in for a new round of attention. So let’s look at its history, its role in regional traffic and some visions for its future.
Maryland has known for at least 6 years that the HOT lanes were coming to the Virginia Beltway.
More than a few elected officials and civic activists in Montgomery County don't want to discuss any new river crossing capacity that might possibly improve highway access from the county or its Maryland neighbors to employment centers in Northern Virginia (including Tysons Corner and the Dulles Toll Road corridor). That probably holds true among some members of the Montgomery County delegation to the Maryland General Assembly.
But Maryland's State Highway Administration
had been studying it since 2006, though not much going on since 2009:
West Side Mobility StudyWhy nothing since 2009? I don't know for certain, but I suspect money has something to do with it.
It's not Virginia's fault that the HOT lanes end the way that they do near VA-193 Georgetown Pike, since Maryland hasn't done anything to extend the Beltway managed lanes at least to I-270, where they could integrate with the HOV lanes on I-270. Either one lane each way or 2 lanes each way, could make a very worthwhile managed lane facility.
In 2003 and 2004, the Montgomery County Planning Board and the Montgomery County Council approved an amendment to the Master Plan of Highways which added HOV lanes to the Capital Beltway between the Virginia end of the American Legion Bridge and I-270Y. Details
here (Adobe Acrobat .pdf format, 311 Kb).
The resolution does not say how many HOV lanes were approved (and it may have been left indeterminate). But traffic in HOV lanes won't flow especially fast in concurrent-flow HOV (or HOT) lanes adjacent to extremely congested general purpose lanes, and one lane each way leaves operations vulnerable to disabled vehicles and wrecks. If the elected officials really want credible transit bus service in the corridor, then the right approach is to extend the Virginia managed lanes north to I-270Y.
That still leaves the issue of what to do with the transition there (since the HOV lanes on I-270 and I-270Y are concurrent-flow HOV-2), and what to do with traffic on I-495 to and from Chevy Chase, Silver Spring and points east.