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Politics & Government

Officials Laud Opening of Watkins Mill Extension

Road project will someday link to a new interchange with Interstate 270.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett cut the ribbon on Thursday to the long-planned extension of Watkins Mill Road, a quarter-mile stretch of roadway will be home to a pair of multi-million dollar mixed-use communities and should eventually connect to a proposed interchange with Interstate 270, the highway's first new interchange in years.

The six-lane extension runs Watkins Mill Road southwest across Rte. 355, stopping short of I-270. It will be the home of the Watkins Mill Town Center, the Spectrum at Watkins Mill, the Montgomery County Police Department's 6th District station and the Gaithersburg Senior Activity Center. The $8 million project was named one of Montgomery County's top road priorities; Gaithersburg named it the city's most important transportation project overall.

"Magnificent job," Leggett said. "… Truly a great road."

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The interchange with I-270, however, remains obscured by Maryland's transportation funding shortfalls. Earlier this week, Leggett was in Annapolis urging state lawmakers to boost state spending on transportation and transit.

"In 2007, the Washington region ranked second behind Los Angeles as having the worst traffic congestion in the nation. Four years later, we now have the dubious distinction of being No. 1," he said in testimony given to House and Senate committees. "The last transportation priorities letter we sent to our State Delegation identified a backlog for the design and construction of State road projects in excess of $1.1 billion. If we include in an estimate the funding needed for projects of regional significance like the widening of I-270, the Corridor Cities Transitway, and the Purple Line, the number approaches $4 billion."

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