Bill Thompson
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — The federal government is considering a developer's proposal to close part of one of D.C.'s busiest highways for more than a year to complete a large construction project.
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The developer of the Capital Crossing project wants to close I-395 between New York Avenue and D Street Northwest for as long as 18 months. The company said the closure would cut in half the time it will take to complete a massive deck over the highway's entrance.
That portion of I-395 carries as many as 90,000 cars a day. AAA said the closure would cause even greater gridlock, and not just in that neighborhood.
“It will have a cascading effect," AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman Lon Anderson told the Washington Post. "All the vehicles that can’t be there are going to be forced onto other very crowded major routes in the city.”
The deck would reconnect the neighborhoods around F and G Streets between Second and Third Streets that were split by the highway.
“It is currently, and has been since the highway was introduced in the middle of the city, a visible and physical scar upon our fair city," Matthew Troy, the city’s director of real estate, told the Post. "It is also a pedestrian nightmare and an unproductive piece of real estate."
Officials are studying the potential impacts of a closure in deciding how to move forward with this project.
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