The Snoqualmie Valley area was proposed in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the corridor for a proposed outer bypass of the Seattle metropolitan area, popularly named Interstate 605. The state legislature commissioned a study in 1998 to determine the feasibility of constructing the freeway, which would have traveled from southern King County to Everett via SR 18 and the SR 203 corridor in the Snoqualmie Valley. The study determined that through-travelers would have only saved five minutes over peak travel times and the legislature shelved the plan. A second study commissioned in 2003 determined that a highway built north of Snoqualmie would not be economically feasible and would fail to sufficiently benefit freight interests to justify its multibillion-dollar cost.