Capital Beltway

Publicity has started for the new toll lanes on the I-495 Capital Beltway due to open late in the year. To be known as 495 Express Lanes they consist of a self-contained 2x2 lane tollroad within a freeway.

Transurban-Fluor's rebuild of 14 of the busiest miles of the Washington DC Capital Beltway must be one of the most difficult construction management jobs currently under way in the country. The joint venture toll concessionaire is rebuilding a 2x4 lane expressway into 2x 6 lanes, the extra two lanes each direction to be High Occupancy/or Toll (HOT) lanes with the traffic managed for free flow with dynamic pricing.

The busiest segment of the Washington metro area's Capital Beltway is one huge distracting construction zone at present. Toll concession partners Transurban and Fluor are widening the mainline of the Beltway from eight lanes to twelve and rebuilding or adding to interchanges - in order to get 2x2 toll express lanes in the center while maintaining 2x4 free lanes on the outside.

Transurban the concessionaire constructing toll lanes on I-495 the Capital Beltway is offering to extend them to the American Legion Bridge at the Potomac River (Maryland territory.) The extension with a single HOT lane each direction from Tysons Corner north would provide a better transition, engineers say, than the presently planned more abrupt merge of dual toll lanes with general purpose lanes.

Raytheon have been selected to do the toll system for Transurban's Capital Beltway, I-495 toll lanes in northern Virginia.

Transurban, the major investors in the toll concession on the $1.4b project to widen the Capital Beltway (I-495) in Virginia to 12 lanes have gone to financial close June 12 on $589m of Private Activity Bonds. The 40-year tax exempt bonds are costing Transurban a weighted average interest of 4.97%, an improvement on the 5.35% when the initial steps in the financial close were reported in December.

Virginia DOT, Transurban and Fluor have signed the contracts and gone to financial close for the construction of four toll lanes plus direct connector ramps on 23km (14 miles) of the Capital Beltway (I-495) in northern Virginia between the Springfield interchange and just short of the Maryland line at the Potomac River.

Virginia has reached agreement with Transurban DRIVe and Fluor on most of the details of a 75-year toll concession to build 22.5km (14 miles) of 2+2 HOT lanes on the Capital Beltway between the Springfield Interchange at I-95 through the Tysons Corner/Dulles Toll Road area. The project has grown in scope and cost to $1.4b for the design-build portion and $1.7b including financing and planning.