About: North Central Freeway (Washington, D.C.)

The North Central Freeway was a planned freeway in the District of Columbia that would have run from the Inner Loop in D.C. to the Capital Beltway (I-495) at Silver Spring. The entire route was canceled in 1977 amid vitriolic protest from Washington D.C. and Takoma Park residents, angered at earlier proposed alignments for the route through the northern suburbs. The cancellation of the route led to the truncation of Interstate 95 at the College Park Interchange and its subsequent rerouting onto the eastern half of the Capital Beltway, and the truncation of Interstate 70S (now I-270) at its current terminus at Bethesda. (At the same time, Interstate 70N, later I-70, was planned to terminate in Baltimore, Maryland, but it too was truncated due to the cancellation of its own segments within t