Montgomery County is situated just north of Washington, D.C. Chevy Chase, Silver Spring and Bethesda are all a part. Montgomery County is an important business and research center. It is the epicenter for biotechnology in the Mid-Atlantic region. Montgomery County is the third largest biotechnology cluster in the nation, holding the principal cluster and companies of large corporate size in the state. Biomedical research is done in the county through institutions like Johns Hopkins University's Montgomery County Campus (JHU MCC), Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Maryland. Federal government agencies engaged in related work include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health, and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.Discovery Communications, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Host Marriott, Robert Louis Johnson Companies (RLJ Cos), Choice Hotels, MedImmune, Chevy Chase Bank, TV One, BAE Systems Inc, Hughes Network Systems, and GEICO are just a few of the large firms headquartered in Montgomery County. Other U.S. federal government agencies based in the county include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring are the largest urban business hubs in the county; combined, they rival many major city cores.
Montgomery County is approximately bisected north-south by Interstate 270, a connector linking Interstate 70 with Washington. I-270 divides in North Bethesda with its primary roadway connecting to the eastbound Capital Beltway (Interstate 495), and a spur connecting to southbound I-495 as it approaches Northern Virginia. Another spur highway, Interstate 370, connects Interstate 270 with the Shady Grove Metro station.
Roughly paralleling 270 is Maryland Route 355, a surface street known for much of its length as Rockville Pike. In its southern reaches it is known as Wisconsin Avenue, while in the north it is known as Frederick Road, or Frederick Ave in Gaithersburg; in the northern half of Rockville (from Town Center north), it is named Hungerford Drive. Other major routes include Maryland Route 190 (River Road); Maryland Route 97 (Georgia Avenue); Maryland Route 650 (New Hampshire Avenue), Maryland Route 185 (Connecticut Avenue), Randolph Road/Montrose Road, and Maryland Route 28 (Darnestown Road, Montgomery Avenue and Norbeck Road). U.S. Route 29 parallels the eastern border of the county; first as Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, then Colesville Road, and thence as Columbia Pike through Burtonsville and into Howard County. Montgomery County operates its own bus public transit system, known as Ride On. Major routes are also covered by WMATA's Metrobus service, and is served by three passenger rail systems. Amtrak, the U.S. national passenger rail system, operates its Capitol Limited to Rockville, between Washington Union Station and Chicago Union Station. The Brunswick line of the MARC commuter rail system makes stops at Silver Spring, Kensington, Garrett Park, Rockville, Washington Grove, Gaithersburg, Metropolitan Grove, Germantown, Boyds, Barnesville, and Dickerson, where the line splits into its Frederick and Martinsburg branches. Finally both suburban arms of the Red Line of the Washington Metro serve Montgomery County. It follows the CSX right of way to the west, roughly paralleling Route 355 from Friendship Heights to Shady Grove. The eastern side runs between the two tracks of the CSX right of way from Washington Union Station to Silver Spring, and roughly parallels Georgia Avenue, from Silver Spring to Glenmont.
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