I-66 West: Washington DC to Virginia

Follows US-29 in Georgetown along the Whitehurst Freeway to I-66 West in Washington DC to Mile 48 in Virginia.

[Rollin]

Jim,
Thanks for this post. I have lived all over the country. This post brought back memories of my living in Northern VA. I rode this road so many times I can't tell you. Thanks for the memories.

[techedtchr]

About the wide left shoulder...the outer loop of I-695 near I-83 headed toward Greenspring Avenue has an enormous left shoulder...I bet they could get at least one more lane in easy.

[smelse]

Whitehurst freeway was renovated in 1998 after a portion of it collapsed on to K St. below. There was much debate on whether to demolish the freeway or not. Had it been demolished it would have made a huge traffic nightmare even worse.

The construction 267 is for the metrorail extension to Tysons and Dulles Airport. The Dulles station will open in 2016, a mere 55 years after the airport was built, and a mere 57 years after planning began for Metrorail. Oy...

[stuckybowl]

I live in England, so I found this really interesting to watch. So much so that i'm gonna subscribe and watch the others too!
Cheers for posting it.

[assaultislove]

As usual, a great video. My hatred for I-66 in NoVa knows no bounds. Whenever I'm up in the DC area, I promise myself to never complain about traffic here in Atlanta. Until I drive down I-75 from Cobb County in the mornings. LOL

[Freewayjim]

The 6 Lane section of I-85 between Lexington & Greensboro is 70 MPH.

[VaFreeways]

Next time you come through here you'll notice the extra lanes in some spots of I-66 inside the beltway and the reconstruction/replacement of the concrete pavement with asphalt between I-495 and US-50 (in addition to all the other construction going on). Right now there are more sections of interstate under construction in NoVa than not. All necessary upgrades but being all done at once makes it painful in the interim.

[csxguy]

Jim Can you redo this section someday with the updated I-66 it has 4 HOV lanes, increased capcity to 3 and changed drastically.

[KDogggRock]

6:06 The highest speed limit in VA is on I-85 south of Petersburg to the NC state line. It is the only place in VA where the SL is 70 mph.

[adventureguy]

Speed limit really doesn't matter anymore. 9 years later traffic's gotten so bad you can't even hit 55. Thanks Loudoun and Prince William.

[thevultrantransituniverse]

You should check out this same section right now. It looks pretty impressive after the rebuild!

[EuropeanRoads]

Nice one.

55 mph is too low for suburban freeways... alignment usually allows up to 65 - 70 in those areas.

[KevinBurciaga]

I left Northern Virginia last year and don't miss the traffic for a second. It's much more fun to watch 66 on YouTube in fast motion than it is to actually drive it.

[trvlcam]

hi Jim! i’ve been a longtime viewer of your videos & i just recently made a test video of me driving to gain experience with Final Cut. it’s a learning curve, but the issue i have is animating the highway shields.. for example how the I-66 shield flew in to the top left, i tried to do that but the transition went into the actual video & not just the shield. how did you get it to only go with the highway shield? i appreciate any advice you could give me!!!

[fitchesbass]

I66 is a nightmare no matter what time of day or what direction. I have been using it for my daily commute from Arlington for over 2 years. Traffic during rush hour, left lane hogs and cell junkies all over the place... an accident waiting to happen. Brilliant inside the beltway where 267/495 are dumped into 66 and then 4 lanes turns into 2. VDOT is miserable.. they do a ton of patch work to 'improve the traffic situation' yet by the time they get it done, it is already OBE. Nice video tho

[Freewayjim]

that lane is open from 2-8PM on weekdays. I-93 north of Boston does something similar as well.

[bbukfan]

An eight-lane 66 would have been even worse; the reason that DC area highway clog up is because all traffic is dispersed either to surface streets within the District or to the Beltway. Widening would actually be counter-productive and it's a good thing that Arlington has used its transport budget to improve the Orange Line as it carries around 80, 000 people on a daily basis.

[wilsonkm]

I learned a hard lesson about trying to take I-66 West to Exit 53B (28 North) in the morning M-F....DON'T DO IT! It gets so backed up trying to get onto 28 North.

[AJTLfilms]

Next time you are in this area you should film I 66 west all the way to Haymarket, which is at exit 40. Haymarket and nearby Gainesville have changed a lot since 2009.

[ArtificialBanana]

Great fun and nice choice of music, as always!