By KELLY HANNON
Dorothy Jackson remembers when Courthouse Road was a gravel lane.
The Stafford County resident got a flashback recently when a portion of Courthouse Road was milled and layered with stone as part of a road improvement project. Residents have been driving over the bumps and rocks for weeks east of Interstate 95.
Jackson preferred the original gravel. On a recent Sunday, the dust was so thick she couldn’t see oncoming traffic.
“I’ve never seen it as bad as it’s been in the last month,” Jackson told Virginia Department of Transportation officials last night.
VDOT held a public meeting at Brooke Point High School to share information about the project and explain why the layer of stone was necessary, and when it will be removed.
David Ogle, administrator of VDOT’s Fredericksburg District, also apologized for not sharing information with residents sooner.
“We probably should have done a little better job about getting the word out, and I’ll take responsibility for that,” Ogle said.
Residents were angry they were given little notice about the gravel and the project, said Stafford Supervisor Paul Milde, who fielded many complaints.
Milde asked whether a single lane could’ve been left paved.
“I question the logic of tearing up the entire road,” Milde said.
The affected piece of Courthouse Road is six-tenths of a mile, between Brooke Point High School and Hamn Lane, just beyond Andrew Chapel Road.
The $5.4 million improvement project was funded in December 2005.
It will widen the road’s travel lanes, add shoulders and straighten out curves. It’s part of a multiphase, $18.2 million plan to fix Courthouse Road.
The road already has been widened to four lanes from U.S. 1 to Brooke Point High School.
The current phase will remain two lanes, but VDOT intends to widen the lanes to meet current standards.
To improve the road, contractors needed to mill the surface. Usually, this breaks the asphalt into miniscule pieces.
This time, an equipment malfunction left the milled asphalt in large chunks. VDOT had to pile stone on top of it to create a driveable surface.
By the end of the first week of November, weather permitting, VDOT hopes to lay a hard, intermediate surface down on Andrew Chapel Road, and from Hamn Lane to shortly before Estate Row on Courthouse Road. VDOT plans to install a hard surface over the remainder of the road by the end of November.
Until then, VDOT will treat the gravel four times a day to control dust.
Ogle said this process, while frustrating and an inconvenience to residents, is a common way to rebuild a road of this size and type throughout the nation.
“This is the type of construction that has to be done for this type of improvement,” Ogle said. A similar project is under way on State Route 610 in King George.
A woman who said she suffered car damage as a result of the project was encouraged to contact VDOT’s Fredericksburg Residency with claim information. VDOT officials distributed contact information at the meeting.
The entire project is scheduled to be completed by May 2008.
Stafford resident Dru Lutinski said the traffic at the construction site has delayed the afternoon arrival of her children’s school bus. In the future, VDOT should give schools and the community more notice, she said.
“This is a nice, informative meeting that should’ve been held before they started the project,” Lutinski said. To reach KELLY HANNON:
540/374-5436
khannon@freelancestar.com