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The placement and number of trees in the median of the |
By GEORGE WHITEHURST
Cars roll steadily down the new Spotsylvania and Southpoint parkways, but debate over the two roads hasn't slowed down.
A divided Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors discussed the design of the Spotsylvania Parkway last night before voting 4-3 to boost its speed limit from 40 mph to 45 mph.
Moments later, supervisors voted unanimously to turn the Southpoint Parkway over to the Virginia Department of Trans- portation, despite concerns that motorists could be in danger as they make left-hand turns out of the various stores and restaurants that line the road.
Then supervisors unanimously agreed to ask VDOT to rename Exit 126 on Interstate 95 from Massaponax to Massaponax/Spotsylvania. If VDOT agrees, Spotsylvania taxpayers will foot the bill for new signs at the exit.
Discussion of the Spotsylvania Parkway dominated last night's discussion of the Massaponax-area transportation network.
The 2.3-mile-long road was built by the Fried Cos. of Springfield as a proffer for its 2,232-home Lee's Parke subdivision, now under construction.
Making the road the centerpiece of Fried's proffer package to the county angered slow-growth activists and some supervisors. Supervisor Vince Onorato opposed the project as a board candidate in 2003.
After the parkway's Dec. 13 opening, Onorato complained that its 40-mph speed limit was far too slow, arguing that motorists should be able to drive 60 mph on the road. He asked the county staff to devise a solution.
The board, including Onorato, voted in October to set the speed limit at 40 mph, based on a request from the Fried Cos.
Fried asked for 40 mph after VDOT demanded that the road's design speed be lowered from 60 mph to 45 mph.
VDOT did so because it argues that the arrangement of trees in the median and the type of median curbing made the 60-mph design speed too high.
The design speed is the speed at which a motorist can comfortably drive on the road, based on factors such as curvature, grade and the proximity to the road of obstacles such as trees.
Harry Lee, an engineering manager with VDOT's Fredericksburg office, said the three rows of trees planted in the Spotsylvania Parkway's median present a potential hazard at a design speed of more than 50 mph.
"In order to make the road acceptable from a safety point, we have said that the speed limit needs to be held at 45 mph," Lee said in an interview yesterday.
Last night, Onorato proposed that the county require Fried to move some of the trees from the median in order to allow at least a 55 mph speed limit. Under that plan, Fried would have had to move the trees before the county would vote to request that VDOT take the parkway into the state's secondary road system. That would have forced Fried to continue paying the parkway's maintenance costs.
Onorato's plan drew sharp disagreement from Supervisors T.C. Waddy and Emmitt Marshall.
"That's the problem now--everybody's in a big hurry and wants to be the first to get there," Waddy said. "I say, lower the speed limit and leave the trees alone."
Onorato then suggested Fried hasn't lived up to its end of the proffer agreement, saying the road was supposed to be a true limited-access parkway.
"We were promised a Cadillac of a road [then] we found out it's a Taurus, then we get the road and find out it's a Pinto," he said.
Jackson agreed, saying that Fried "consciously, intentionally placed these trees in a way that is in contradiction to what the road is supposed to be used for."
In the end, Waddy's and Marshall's arguments carried the day. The board voted 4-3 to change the design speed to 50 mph and boost the speed limit to 45 mph, and to leave all of the trees in the median.
Waddy, Marshall and Supervisors Hap Connors and Bob Hagan backed the proposal, while Onorato, Jackson and Supervisor Chris Yakabouski voted no.
County Administrator Randy Wheeler said the speed-limit decision clears the way for the board to ask VDOT to accept the Spotsylvania Parkway into the state's secondary-road system.
To reach GEORGE WHITEHURST:
Email: gwhitehurst@freelancestar.com
