|
|
By EDIE GROSS
Marie Griffis will go three or four days without retrieving her mail because reaching her mailbox means crossing Stafford County's busy Courthouse Road.
"They come down this road like they're wild," said Griffis, who has equal trouble pulling out of her driveway near the Stafford Green community.
"This is a dangerous, dangerous road," she said. "I've been here 19, going on 20, years and it is awful."
Griffis is counting on a project that will widen the road's travel lanes, add shoulders and straighten out some of its hairpin curves.
But the roadwork has a fair amount of opposition, too.
Some residents worry it will destroy the area's rural nature and invite more development. And the project's ultimate price tag--$18.2 million--might be better spent on other roads, they say.
"I think it's a waste of time and money. We don't need it," said Mariel Berrios-Riebe, who lives nearby on Brooke Road. "I really think there are other places we can use that money."
She and others point to the Falmouth intersection, State Route 610 and U.S. 17 as spots more in need of improvement than Courthouse Road, also known as State Route 630.
"We've got the Falmouth intersection, where 60,000 cars a day are sitting in traffic," said Cecelia Kirkman, who lives south of the project area. "Eighteen-point-two million dollars won't pay for all of the Falmouth intersection, but it'd be a good down payment."
Elected officials who serve on the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization will hold a public hearing on the project tomorrow at 6 p.m. in the Stafford Board of Supervisors chambers at 1300 Courthouse Road.
The issue is largely how to fund the project, which has been in the works for at least a decade. But some residents are pushing FAMPO officials to revisit whether the work should happen at all.
Is project a priority?Crews widened Courthouse Road to four lanes between U.S. 1 and Brooke Point High School about five years ago.
Officials always intended to improve the rest of the road east of U.S. 1 in three separate phases, and they've been steadily setting aside money to do so.
The next phase includes the stretch between the high school and Hamn Lane, just beyond Andrew Chapel Road. That segment will remain two lanes, but the Virginia Department of Transportation intends to widen them so they meet current standards.
The $5.4 million project also would add shoulders to the narrow road and straighten some of the tighter curves to improve visibility.
VDOT intended to bid that project this summer, but it's been delayed because of questions over the funding source.
About 10 years ago, the Federal Highway Administration agreed to let VDOT use a particular pot of money usually reserved for getting cars off the road.
The logic went something like this: Improving Courthouse Road would make it easier for drivers to reach the Brooke Virginia Railway Express station, which was underused at the time. Putting people on commuter trains would take them off Interstate 95.
So VDOT planned to use Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds, so-called CMAQ money, for that piece of the project.
The Brooke VRE station is now overcrowded, however, so there's no need to encourage drivers to go there.
Federal officials, alerted by Kirkman, recently ruled that VDOT could not use CMAQ money to improve Courthouse Road. But they said VDOT could transfer its CMAQ money into another account that specifically supports road projects.
Tomorrow night, FAMPO officials will decide whether to transfer the money.
Kirkman questions the appropriateness of moving the funds. And if VDOT is going to spend money improving local roads, she asks, why not look at roads more crowded than this one?
"It could be a worthy project in its own right, but is it a priority?" she said of the Courthouse Road work. "Is this the best use of this year's transportation dollars?"
About 7,200 cars a day travel the segment of Courthouse Road between Brooke Point High and Andrew Chapel Road, a far cry from some of the county's busier thoroughfares.
But those busy roads are being addressed in other ways, said Supervisor Pete Fields.
Special taxing districts on U.S. 17 and State Route 610 will help pay for improvements there, he said. Transportation impact fees, assessed to new developments, will help cover costs in rural areas.
And the Commonwealth Transportation Board has set aside $12.7 million for the Falmouth intersection, where VDOT is considering building an overpass.
Courthouse Road, Fields said, is a "crisis corridor," one that needs attention from this federal pot of money.
"[Routes] 610 and 17 are still big problems, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "There is a plan. [Route] 630 doesn't lend itself to the other solutions we've availed ourselves of."
Protecting a communityVDOT has purchased right of way, cleared trees and moved utilities along Courthouse Road. Construction could begin in the spring if funds are released.
Another $12.8 million in work is also planned. One project would improve the road between Hamn Lane and just east of an old bridge over the CSX railroad tracks.
The other one would provide a new street between Courthouse and Brooke roads, essentially replacing Andrew Chapel Road as a through street.
That new road would dead-end in front of Crow's Nest, a concern for Kirkman and others who warn that it could promote development in a peaceful, rural community. Residents who live near Aquia Creek also worry the improvements could bring unwanted growth.
A crumbling one-lane bridge separates their community from the rest of Courthouse Road. Vehicles that cross it are limited to 15 tons. School buses and fire trucks are OK, but garbage trucks and large delivery vehicles aren't.
Several say they would like a new bridge over the tracks, which is included in a future project, so they could have concrete or gravel delivered to their homes.
But they don't want to lose their seclusion as a result.
"I would just like to have a safer bridge," said resident Paulette Fields. "But if I had to chose between [having] subdivisions and the bridge, I'd say leave the bridge alone."
Resident Pat Rowe agreed.
"I don't want to see the area change," she said. "When I cross that little bridge and come over the hill, I think, 'Leave this crazy world behind,' and it's quiet. I'm afraid if they do that [project] it will open that area up."
The land on that side of the bridge is zoned agricultural, meaning only one home is allowed every three acres. That zoning should be enough to prevent overdevelopment while still building a new bridge, said Mark O'Quinn, owner of East Coast Marine Works on Aquia Creek.
"I pay a lot of money in taxes, and I can't even get trash service," O'Quinn said.
That area uses septic tanks and well water, a factor that also could keep out big developers, said Charlotte Patnode, owner of Courthouse Road Bed and Breakfast.
Supervisor Kandy Hilliard said the Courthouse Road project will not promote development in Crow's Nest or along Aquia Creek. It will address basic access needs for those living on the east side of the bridge, she said.
"Whether Crow's Nest is developed or never developed--it will make no difference if this road is repaired. This is a dangerous road," she said. "There's an entire group of people over there whose lives are dramatically and negatively affected.
"They're not able to get furniture delivered. They're not able to get appliances delivered," she said. "You've got an entire community over there who's held hostage. They have no control over that bridge."
According to VDOT statistics, 14 accidents took place on Courthouse Road between the high school and Hamn Lane from 2000 to 2004. Six of them resulted in injuries.
In five of the accidents, teens were behind the wheel. Stafford County's Youth Driver Task Force identified the stretch as one that needed improvements.
Griffis said she didn't need a task force to tell her that.
"Right now, if you're coming down that hill and there's a fire truck behind you, honey, there's no place to go," she said. "This road right now is almost as bad as [State Route] 610, and you ain't got but two lanes and no shoulders."
Patnode, owner of the bed-and-breakfast, said the road needs shoulders and her neighborhood probably ought to have a new bridge.
"At the same time, for selfish reasons, we don't want this area to become another Route 3, 17 or 610," she said. "Finding a happy medium would be delightful."
To reach EDIE GROSS:
Email: egross@freelancestar.com