Interstate 66 (I-66) is a 76.32 mile east–west interstate highway in the eastern United States. The highway runs from an interchange with I-81 near Middletown, Virginia, on its western end to an interchange with U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Washington, D.C., at the eastern terminus. The route parallels State Route 55 (SR 55) from its western terminus at I-81 to Gainesville, Virginia, and US 29 from Gainesville to its eastern terminus in Washington. I-66 is unrelated to US 66, which was located in the Midwest-West region of the United States.
The E Street Expressway is a spur from I-66 into the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Planned expansions of I-66, including an auxiliary route, I-266, were ended by community opposition in the 1970s. I-266 would have begun in Arlington, Virginia, and terminated in Washington at K Street NW.
Route description
|VA |74.8 |120.54 |- |DC |1.6 |2.57 |- |Total |76.4 |123.11
Virginia Interstate 81 to Dunn Loring
I-66 begins at a directional T interchange with I-81 near Middletown, Virginia. It heads east as a four-lane freeway and meets US 522/US 340 at a partial cloverleaf interchange. The two routes head south to Front Royal and north to Lake Frederick. I-66 continues east and crosses the Blue Ridge at Manassas Gap, paralleling SR 55 (John Marshall Highway) and meeting US 17 at a partial interchange with no access from eastbound I-66 to northbound US 17. SR 55 also merges onto the freeway at this interchange, forming a three-way concurrency that ends near Marshall, with SR 55 leaving along with U.S. Route 17 Business (US 17 Bus.) at a diamond interchange and US 17 leaving at the next exit, also at a diamond interchange. The freeway then passes through Bull Run Mountain at Thoroughfare Gap.
Expanding to six lanes, and continuing to parallel SR 55, I-66 enters the towns of Haymarket and Gainesville, reaching the diverging diamond interchange with US 15 (James Madison Highway) and the partial cloverleaf interchange with US 29 (Lee Highway) in each town, respectively. The highway then expands to ten lanes (with HOT lanes) and heads to the south of Manassas National Battlefield Park and to the north of Bull Run Regional Park, after meeting SR 234 (Prince William Parkway) at a trumpet interchange. The highway reaches a partial cloverleaf interchange with US 29 and passes to the north of Centreville and meets SR 28 (Sully Road), SR 620 (Braddock Road), and SR 657 (Walney Road) at an interchange with cloverleaf and stack elements to it. SR 28 heads north as a freeway to Dulles International Airport and south as an arterial to Manassas.
The freeway then meets SR 286 (Fairfax County Parkway), US 50 (Little River Turnpike), and SR 123 (Chain Bridge Road) at a series of interchanges providing access to D.C. suburbs. The Orange Line and Silver Line of the Washington Metro begin to operate in the median here, as the highway reaches a large interchange with the I-495 (Capital Beltway).
I-66 has four variably tolled HOT lanes from US 29 in Gainesville to the Capital Beltway, meaning the price depends on the traffic. It is often called the I-66 Express Lanes Outside the Beltway.
Dunn Loring to Theodore Roosevelt Bridge The section of I-66 in Virginia east of I-495, often called I-66 Inside the Beltway, is officially named the Custis Memorial Parkway. It is a toll road during peak hours. The road narrows to four lanes as it heads through Arlington County. The parkway meets SR 7 (Leesburg Pike) at a full interchange. SR 267 (Dulles Toll Road) meets the parkway with an eastbound entrance and westbound exit. Continuing through neighborhoods, the route yet again meets US 29 at an incomplete interchange and continues east into Arlington County, meeting SR 120 (Glebe Road) and continuing to Arlington County. It meets Spout Run Parkway and enters Rosslyn. The freeway turns southeast and runs in between US 29 as it approaches the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, reaching another eastbound entrance and westbound exit as US 29 continues north on the Key Bridge. It then has a complex interchange with George Washington Parkway and SR 110 (Richmond Highway), providing access to Alexandria and the Pentagon, respectively. US 50 (Arlington Boulevard) merges onto the highway with a westbound exit and eastbound entrance and the two traverse the bridge.
The "Custis Memorial Parkway" name commemorates the Custis family, several of whose members (including Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, George Washington Parke Custis, Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis and Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee) played prominent roles in Northern Virginia's history. Because of its terminus in the Shenandoah Valley, some early planning documents refer to I-66 as the "Shenandoah Freeway," although the name did not enter common use.
Between the Capital Beltway and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, the eastbound (inbound) roadway is a high-occupancy toll (HOT) road from 5:30 to 9:30 am, and the westbound (outbound) roadway is an HOT road from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. (Westbound tolling begins after exit 73 to US 29, in order to allow traffic crossing the bridge an opportunity to transfer to free roads.) E-ZPass is required for all vehicles except motorcycles, including Dulles Airport users. I-66 is free during those times for HOV-3+ drivers with an E-ZPass Flex and for motorcycles. Other drivers must pay a variable toll depending on traffic levels. Outside of these hours, I-66 is free for all drivers to use.
Washington, D.C. In Washington, D.C., the route quickly turns north, separating from US 50. The highway interchanges with the E Street Expressway spur before passing beneath Virginia and New Hampshire Avenues in a short tunnel, also running on the east side of the Watergate complex. After an indirect interchange with the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway (via 27th Street), the highway terminates at a pair of ramps leading to the Whitehurst Freeway (US 29) and L Street. The portion of Interstate 66 within Washington, D.C., is known as the Potomac River Freeway.
E Street Expressway
The E Street Expressway is a 480 meter long spur of I-66 that begins at an interchange with the interstate just north of the Roosevelt Bridge. It proceeds east, has an interchange with Virginia Avenue Northwest, and terminates at 20th Street Northwest. From there, traffic continues along E Street Northwest to 17th Street Northwest near the White House, the Old Executive Office Building, George Washington University, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Westbound traffic from 17th Street takes a one-block segment of New York Avenue to the expressway entrance at 20th and E streets northwest. The expressway and the connecting portions of E Street and New York Avenue are part of the National Highway System.
In 1963, the construction of the E Street Expressway caused the demolition of multiple buildings of the Old Naval Observatory.
Exit list The entire route is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. All exits are unnumbered.
History Virginia
I-66 was first proposed in 1956—shortly after Congress established the Highway Trust Fund—as a highway to connect Strasburg, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley with Washington, D.C..
During the planning stages, the Virginia Highway Department considered four possible locations for the highway inside the Beltway; in 1959, it settled on one that followed the Fairfax Drive–Bluemont Drive corridor between the Beltway and SR 120 (Glebe Road); and then along the Rosslyn Spur of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad (W&OD) between Glebe Road and Rosslyn in Arlington County. The route west of 123 was determined earlier. Two other routes through Arlington neighborhoods and one along Arlington Boulevard were rejected due to cost or opposition. I-66 was originally to connect to the Three Sisters Bridge, but, as that bridge was canceled, it was later designed to connect to the Potomac River Freeway via the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.
On December 16, 1961, the first piece of I-66, an section from US 29 at Gainesville to US 29 at Centreville was opened. A disconnected section near Delaplane in Fauquier County opened next in May 1962.
In July 1962, the highway department bought the Rosslyn Spur of the W&OD for $900,000 (equivalent to $ in ) and began clearing the way, such that, by 1965, all that was left was dirt and the remains of 200 homes cleared for the highway. In February 1965, the state contracted to buy of the W&OD from Herndon to Alexandria for $3.5 million (equivalent to $ in ) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, by then the owners of the line, petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to let them abandon it. The purchase would eliminate the need to build grade separation where the railroad crossed I-66 and would provide of right-of-way for the highway, saving the state millions. The abandonment proceedings took more than three years, as customers of the railway and transit advocates fought to keep the railroad open and delayed work on the highway. During that time, on November 10, 1967, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced that it had come to an agreement with the Highway Department that would give them a two-year option to buy a stretch of the right-of-way from Glebe Road to the Beltway, where I-66 was to be built, and run mass transit on the median of it. The W&OD ran its last train during the summer of 1968, clearing the way for construction to begin in Arlington County.
While the state waited on the W&OD, work continued elsewhere. The Theodore Roosevelt Bridge opened on June 23, 1964, and, in November of that year, the section from Centreville to the Beltway opened. A extension from the Roosevelt Bridge to Rosslyn opened in October 1966.
After the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT; then known as the Virginia Department of Highways) took possession of the mainline W&OD right-of-way in 1968, they began to run into opposition as the highway revolts of the late 1960s and early 1970s took hold. In 1970, the Arlington County Board requested new hearings, and opponents began to organize marches. At the same time, the federal government wanted to pave the right-of-way from Washington Boulevard and Glebe Road to Rosslyn for an experimental busway, which Arlington County opposed, in part because they thought it might delay and add to the cost of I-66. A significant delay was encountered when the Arlington Coalition on Transportation (ACT) filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in 1971 opposing the Arlington County portion of the project. The group objected to that urban segment due to concerns over air quality, noise, unwanted traffic congestion, wasteful spending, impacts on mass transit, and wasted energy by auto travel. In 1972 the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of ACT, technically blocking any construction. The US Supreme Court upheld the ruling in favor of ACT later that same year.
Again, work continued elsewhere, and, in October 1971, the section from I-81 to US 340/US 522 north of Front Royal opened.
In July 1974, a final environmental impact statement (EIS) was submitted. The EIS proposed an eight-lane limited access expressway from the Capital Beltway to the area near Spout Run Parkway. Six lanes would branch off at the Parkway and cross the Potomac River via a proposed Three Sisters Bridge. Another six lanes would branch off to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. In November, a modified design was submitted, reducing the eight lanes to six. However, in 1975, VDOT disapproved the six-lane design.