edges from the outset that the diversion would be

edges from the outset that the diversion would be small. An opening summary focuses instead on other benefits that engineers have said a bypass will bring.

For a western route, those benefits include:

• An “interstate-type link” between southeastern Virginia and North Carolina and western Pennsylvania and the Midwest;

• “Interstate-type” access “oriented toward suburban and exurban activity centers that is growing at a rapid rate and is largely unserved;”

• Additional access to Dulles International Airport and the Inland Port at Front Royal.

• Alternative routing for “congested radial faculties” —1-95 and 1-270 — as weU as the existing beltway, and U.S. 15 and U.S. 17.

Additonally, BMI has estimated that the total economic cost due to beltway accidents will reach $315 million by the year 2010. One-half of that cost can be saved by diverting truck traffic to a bypass, according to the study.

The BeUomo-McGee Inc. study released April 30 is a foot-high stack divided into 10 parts; the 1,500 pages detaU findings and projections on costs and impacts, and subjects range from traffic and engineering to wetlands and rivers and groundwater. The report covers air quality, aquatic and water resources, land use and economic development, and discusses at length the identification and screening of potential corridors.

More than two years in the making, the study has in various stages looked at scores of potential corridors in a 5,135 square mUe swath around Washington. In 1985 the study area contained 5.5 million people and 3.2 million jobs; by the year 2010 the area’s population is projected to reach 7.2 milion people and wUl off 4.8 million jobs — without the construction of a bypass.

“Some areas in the vicinity of the bypass or an interchange that are not currently planned for development would be likely to have growth resulting directly from the bypass,” the report concludes. “This would occur in Caroline, King

See BYPASS, p. 17