Some projects being considered in Stafford include (clockwise from top left) widening Courthouse Road from Cedar Lane west to Shelton Shop Road to six lanes; extending Andrew Chapel Road to improve access to the Brooke VRE station; improving narrow, winding Forbes Street, which many use as cut-through to avoid the U.S. 1/17 intersection in Falmouth; and widening Garrisonville Road in North Stafford. Photos by SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Stafford eyes roads

Stafford supervisors consider road plan

By MEGHANN COTTER

Date published: 2/7/2006

By MEGHANN COTTER

By MEGHANN COTTER

Road construction isn't moving fast enough for Stafford County supervisors.

And the group, including four members who joined the board in January, hopes it can put the pedal to the metal, starting with the Virginia Department of Transportation's six-year secondary road plan.

Supervisors have spent the last month educating themselves about the proposal. And at a work session nearly two weeks ago they discussed their priorities and slid the county's transportation commission into the driver's seat.

VDOT's secondary road plan, which applies to roads numbered 600 and higher, must be approved by supervisors annually for the upcoming six years. In this case, they are looking at projects for 2007 through 2012. They have between $3.2 and about $3.3 million to work with each year.

Scott Shropshire, assistant residency administrator for VDOT, said it is typical for boards, especially those with new members, to spend a lot of time picking apart their county's road plan.

"If transportation is near and dear to a supervisors heart, he's going to want to know more details," he said.

With four new members on the Stafford board, many of whom pledged to remedy transportation problems in their campaigns last year, the group has had a lot of questions and suggestions for what should be added or removed from the plan.

Supervisor George Schwartz asked that several roads in and around his Falmouth District--such as Forbes Street, Sanford Drive and Sanstead Road--be added to the county plan. Those areas are already treacherous, he said. And many new developments slated for the areas threaten to make it worse.

Schwartz also asked that the Andrew Chapel Road extension part of the VDOT plan be dropped, in response to strong public concerns raised at a public hearing in early January. Many people said they believed the project would encourage the development of Crow's Nest, a 4,000-acre environmentally sensitive tract in the Aquia District.

But Aquia Supervisor Paul Milde said it would be short-sighted of the board to ignore Andrew Chapel, which carries many commuters to the Brooke rail station. Right now, he said, the road squeezes into a one-lane pass under a railroad bridge, and that doesn't encourage people to use mass transit.

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Date published: 2/7/2006