Rockville Facility

From Aspen Hill, Maryland, USA

Excerpted from an excellent overview of the history of highway planning in and around Montgomery County, courtesy of SecondCrossing.Org, sourced as Scott M. Kozel:

The Rockville Facility was killed in two actions in 1987 and 1990. 

Then state Sen. Idamae Garrott, who represented the Aspen Hill area 
– a major hotbed of anti-ICC sentiment -- succeeded in getting the 
General Assembly to pass a statute (8-601) prohibiting state funding 
of the Rockville Facility.  This took the road out of the 
State Highway inventory, meaning only County funds could pay for it, 
except for an interchange at Rockville Pike.  There have been 
bills through the years prohibiting the ICC, but none have passed.

In 1991, she succeeded in getting the General Assembly 
to enact legislation to remove a section of the RF right of way 
between Viers Mill Road to Georgia Avenue, and converting the land 
to Matthew Henson State Park (8-610).  The justification for this 
was that there were wetlands in this region that would 
potentially rule out a freeway there.  By turning this section 
into a park, it cannot be reversed for transportation usage. 

A chief supporter of this measure was Del. Henry Heller, 
who lives on Turkey Branch Parkway, which fronts 
the Rockville Freeway, now Henson Park.  Parts of the 
never-completed interchange for the Rockville Facility are 
visible on Connecticut Avenue at Henson Park.  Garrott’s law 
also allows: “A public pavilion, named in honor 
of Senator Idamae Garrott, may be constructed 
within Matthew Henson State Park.” 

As a result of these two statutes, the Rockville Freeway 
was dead.  That same year, M-NCPPC was rewriting the 
North Bethesda/Garrett Park master plan, out of which 
grew the Montrose Parkway.