Maryland Route 97

Maryland Route 97 (MD 97) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The route runs 55.27 mi (88.95 km) from U.S. Route 29 in Silver Spring, Montgomery County north to the Pennsylvania border in Carroll County, where the road continues into that state as Pennsylvania Route 97. Throughout most of Montgomery County, MD 97 is known as Georgia Avenue, which continues south from the southern terminus along US 29 into Washington, D.C. It is a suburban four- to six-lane divided highway from Silver Spring north to Olney. From here, the route continues as a rural two-lane road north through Brookeville and into Howard County. MD 97 continues through Carroll County where it passes through the county seat of Westminster. The route intersects many major roads, including Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway) north of Silver Spring, Maryland Route 200 (Intercounty Connector) in Aspen Hill, Maryland Route 28 in Norbeck, Interstate 70 and U.S. Route 40 in Cooksville, Maryland Route 26 in Dorsey Crossroads, and Maryland Route 27, Maryland Route 32, and Maryland Route 140 in the Westminster area.

With the creation of the U.S. Highway System in 1926, present-day MD 97 north of Westminster became a part of U.S. Route 140. The designation MD 97 was first used by 1940 for the road running from US 29 in Silver Spring to north of US 40 in Cooksville. An extension of the route by 1960 took it to the Pennsylvania border northwest of Emmitsburg, Frederick County. It replaced Maryland Route 570, which ran from MD 26 to just north of the Carroll-Howard county line, paralled MD 32 between Westminster and Taneytown, and replaced MD 32 from Taneytown to the Pennsylvania border. By 1979, MD 97 was shifted onto its current alignment north of Westminster with the removal of US 140 from the U.S. Highway System; the MD 140 designation was applied to the former MD 97 that ran northwest from Westminster.