History
| Interstate 289 | |
|---|---|
| Location: | Chittenden County |
Plans for a partial beltway around the northern and eastern fringes of Burlington first surfaced in the late 1970s. The limited-access highway was initially intended to be 15.8 miles (25.4 km) long and four lanes wide, with two in each direction. After the United States Congress allocated $50 million (equivalent to $120 million in 2012) to the project in 1982, the highway was intended to be built as Interstate 289. The highway, named the Chittenden County Circumferential Highway, was to start at VT 127 in Colchester and travel southeast to Interstate 89 in Williston. Due to a lack of funding, it was to be initially constructed as a two-lane expressway. One of the main concerns that this road was to alleviate was the traffic congestion plaguing an intersection in the center of Essex Junction.
In 1986, a final Environmental Impact Statement was co-released by the United States Department of Transportation and the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans). Potential consequences of building a highway that met Interstate Highway standards in the area included noise impact on residential areas and disruption around archaeologically sensitive areas in the right-of-way. I-289 was effectively redesignated VT 289 when the Vermont General Assembly added the road to the state highway system that same year.
In planning, the road was divided into ten alphabetical segments, A through J, ordered from southeast to northwest. Segments C, D, E, and F in Essex were completed and opened to traffic in October 1993.
Read more about this topic: Vermont Route 289
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