Interstate 495: The Capital Beltway

What can I say? This is Washington, DC's Main Street - The Capital Beltway. Although the road is not for the faith of heart, if you live or travel through the Washington, DC area, you will travel on The Capital Beltway sometime in your life.

The Capital Beltway is a mostly eight lane interstate highway that runs circumferentially around Washington, DC. It opened in the mid-1960's as a four lane road. It was the first fully complete Interstate Highway in the state of Virginia. The Beltway has been progressively widened over the years to its current lane configuration. The entire Beltway carries the I-495 designation. Between I-95/I-395 in Springfield, VA and I-95 in College Park, MD, the Beltway carries the I-95 designation as well. This happened after I-95 was cancelled through downtown DC and Prince Georges County, MD.

The Capital Beltway carries far more traffic than it was originally designed to carry. Even with the widening that has been done over the years, there are regular traffic jams during rush hours. To address the continuing increases in congestion, the Virginia Department of Transportation has decided to build High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes on the Beltway in each direction for 14 miles from Springfield to north of the DullesToll Road. The HOT Lanes would be built as a Public-Private Transportation Act (PPTA) project. Under the PPTA agreement, VDOT will own and oversee the lanes and Fluor-Transurban will construct, operate and provide routine maintenance on them.

Another project currently under construction along the Capital Beltway is the Wilson Bridge replacement project. The project will replace the aging and overburdened Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge which carries the Capital Beltway between Alexandria, VA and Oxon Hill, MD. The new bridge will be higher to reduce draw span openings and wider so that Beltway traffic does not need to squeeze down to three lanes (from four) at the bridge. The Telegraph Road and US 1 Richmond Highway interchanges will also be improved as a part of the project. The completion of the Woodrow Wilsom Bridge Project will be a welcome improvement to the Capital Beltway.

The Capital Beltway also saw construction wrap up last summer on the multi-year project to replace the Springfield Interchange. The Springfield Interchange is the major junction of the Beltway, I-95 and I-395.

Scott Kozel has developed an excellent website devoted to the Capital Beltway. It is well worth you time to review his site.

On the Exit List, read down to go clockwise (west/north) and read up to go counterclockwise (east/south). Please note that the Exit List destinations and route names do not necessarily match the actual signs on The Capital Beltway. The Route Numbers and Exit Numbers (of course) do match. I did this to try to include as much information possible to help you navigate the exits on The Beltway.

Exit Number	Route that Crosses I-495	Exit Destinations
177	US 1 Patrick Street/Richmond Highway	Alexandria/Fort Belvior/Mount Vernon
176	VA 241 NORTH/VA 611 SOUTH Telegraph Road	Alexandria/Franconia
174	Eisenhower Avenue Connector	A good alternate route to Van Dorn Street and the Van Dorn Metro Station.
173	VA 613 Van Dorn Street	Franconia/Alexandria
170 (Clockwise/ Westbound) 57 (Counterclockwise/ Eastbound)	I-395 NORTH/I-95 SOUTH	The Springfield Interchange. Washington/Richmond. I-95 multiplex ends here.
54	VA 620 Braddock Road	A good westbound alternative to Fairfax.
52	VA 236 Little River Turnpike	Annandale/Fairfax
51	VA 650 Gallows Road	Merrifield/Annandale
50	US 50 Arlington Boulevard	Merrifield/Fairfax/Seven Corners/Arlington
49	I-66 (Counterclockwise East/South - WEST ONLY - USE Exit 45 to go EAST on I-66)	Washington/Fairfax/Manassas/Front Royal
47	VA 7 Leesburg Pike	Tysons Corner/Falls Church
46	VA 123 Chain Bridge Road	Tysons Corner/McLean
45	VA 267 TOLL WEST/Dulles Airport Access Highway/TO I-66 EAST (Counterclockwise East/South ONLY)	Dulles Airport/Reston/Herndon/Washington/TO Dulles Greeway and Leesburg
44	VA 193 Georgetown Pike	Langley/Great Falls, VA
43	George Washington Memorial Parkway	Washington