GETTING THERE: Rural roads getting safety work

Crews are set to start widening the shoulders, by about 1 foot, on the two-lane Kellogg Mill Road on Monday, which will result in mobile lane closures and one-way, alternating traffic, according to a VDOT news release. Crews will be working between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

The work on Kellogg Mill Road will start on a 2-mile segment between Poplar Road and Abel Drive. That section is expected to be completed in two weeks. Then crews will move to a half-mile section between Mountain View and Ramoth Church roads, which should be completed in a week.

The project also will include resurfacing of the road. That will be done later this year, VDOT said.

The shoulder widening aims to give drivers more space, reducing “the risk of crashes and injuries that can result from vehicles running off the road,” local VDOT spokesperson Alexis Breeden said in the release.

VDOT has been widening shoulders, along with other safety improvements, on rural roads across the 14-county VDOT Fredericksburg District in the past few years. Some of that work has been completed.

Between 2020 and 2022, VDOT widened rural road shoulders on a section of one road in Caroline County, seven Stafford roads and six in Spotsylvania, according to local VDOT spokesperson Kelly Hannon.

The VDOT safety program also emphasizes other improvements on “high-risk” rural roads.

That work includes adding signs and pavement markings, selective shoulder widening and “high-friction surface treatment” on 78 miles of 109 road segments in the Fredericksburg area, the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, according to Hannon.

Work on those roads is expected to be finished in 2024.

The rural road safety improvements also include a range of other local projects.

For instance, there is the $1.6 million project at the intersection of Partlow Road and Ladysmith Road in Caroline County. That work improved sight distance with a realignment and flattening of a curve at the intersection, along with adding turn lanes and a new stop sign.

Work is underway on a $2 million King George County project that will add a dedicated right-turn lane from westbound Dahlgren Road to westbound Caledon Road. The existing lane will be marked to allow traffic to continue straight or turn left onto St. Paul’s Road.

Another safety project aims to rebuild the Spotsylvania County intersection of State Route 3 and Orange Plank Road in the Wilderness area, near the Orange County border.

The $228,000 project calls for converting the intersection into a “restricted crossing U-turn pattern,” according to VDOT. The change should reduce conflict points. The work is scheduled to start in the spring and be completed in the fall.