RICHMOND, Va. — Four major traffic projects focused on reducing congestion and improving connectivity on Interstate 495 and Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia were announced by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Tuesday.
Virginia and Transburban, which built and owns the Express Lanes on I-95 and I-495, have signed agreement to invest more than $1 billion in the projects that include adding an additional lane on I-95 at the Occoquan Bridge.
"This is huge. There's about 200,000 people that go both ways through the Occoquan bottleneck every day. Getting this problem solved, it's the worst bottleneck in Northern Virginia," state Sen. Scott Surovell said.
The other major bottleneck that will get relief is on the Beltway in Tysons where the Express Lanes as traffic heads to the American Legion Bridge.
Transurban will extend the Express Lanes to the bridge and build an interchange with the Express Lanes and the George Washington Parkway.
The two other projects are a new, reversible ramp connecting the existing I-95 Express Lanes at Opitz Boulevard and the extension of the Express Lanes to Fredericksburg.
The new projects came about from intense, year-long discussions between state leaders and Transurban, the company that built and owns the Express Lanes which make Transurban millions of dollars from tolls.
"We're finally getting rid of this logjam, getting the auxiliary lane without the big contract fights that have been going on for years and disagreement with Transurban," state Sen. Jeremy McPike said.
Why couldn't the state just widen it's own highway itself, you might ask?State Sen. Scott Surovell explains.
"In order for the state to widen the road, they were going to have to pay Transurban tens of millions of dollars because of lost tolls in the contract. With Transurban waiving that agreement it lowers the cost by millions of dollars and makes it possible to do it efficiently," Surovell said.
None of the projects will not require any public funding, according to a statement released by Gov. Ralph Northam. The money is mostly coming from Transurban.
"Virginians rely on our transportation network to access jobs, education, health care, and opportunity," Northam said. "The Commonwealth is committed to delivering the safest, most reliable transportation system possible."
The projects will help alleviate traffic issues for people specifically in the northern Virginia and Fredericksburg areas.
"The I-95 bottleneck at the Occoquan bridge has been a source of personal frustration and time stuck in traffic, valuable time that could be spent with family," State Sen. Jeremy McPike said.
Here are the four projects:
- Construction of a new southbound lane on I-95 in Woodbridge to address the traffic bottleneck at the Occoquan Bridge
- 2.5-mile extension of the I-495 Express Lanes north to the American Legion Bridge with ramp connecting Express Lanes to the George Washington Parkway
- New reversible ramp connecting I-95 Express Lanes at Opitz Boulevard to provide better access to Potomac Mills and Sentara Virginia Medical Center
- 10-mile extension of the the I-95 Express Lanes south to Fredericksburg
Work is expected to start as soon as 2020.