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U.S. 15: Balancing expansion with conservation
Native Americans walked a path from the Potomac River south to what we now call North Carolina centuries before the first Europeans arrived in the New World and pushed them out of their homeland. It was called the Great Warrior Path, the Shenandoah Indian Trail and the Susquehannock Plain Path.
To the Revolutionary War solider, it was the old Carolina Road, and traders from Frederick, Md., to North Carolina maneuvered a 10-foot-wide dirt track to move woolen goods south and cotton north. Union troops used it to invade the South, and it witnessed major battles and minor skirmishes from Ball's Bluff to Aldie and on to Warrenton.
Since 1926, it's been U.S. 15, a ribbon of concrete that still connects North and South. The wars of the past over sovereignty have given way to today's battles over traffic – to widen or not to widen.
At one point in the late 1990s, planners saw it as a western beltway, six lanes of high-speed highway circling Washington, D.C., 45 miles away. The western beltway has disappeared from planning maps, for now, but the struggle between moving cars and maintaining the integrity of the landscape continues.
Elected leaders today in Prince William and Loudoun counties are mapping out the road's present and future. Prince William will widen the road to four lanes. Loudoun will try to preserve the two-lane road for a majority of its length.
Lee Highway to Interstate 66
Long-term planning shows U.S. 15 as a four-lane road from Lee Highway to the Loudoun County line, said Prince William Director of Capital Projects Khattab Shammout. The first priority, once money is available, is the three miles from Lee Highway to Route 66. Once that is done, more money will be needed to widen the highway the remaining 5.6 miles from Route 234 to the Loudoun County line at Bull Run.
I-66 to Bull Run/Loudoun County
As any commuter in the area knows, construction is under way to widen U.S. 15 to a four-lane divided highway from I-66 to Route 234. That project should be completed by the end of this year. A combination of voter-approved bond money and road improvements from Toll Brothers and other builders paid for the 3.9-mile project.
Leslie Dawley moved from Fairfax to then-rural Prince William in 1995 and established Burnside Farms. Since that time, she has lost 4.5 acres of her farm to eminent domain, and at the moment, construction on the northbound lanes of U.S. 15 blocks the public from her farm. When construction is complete and traffic is flowing, she and her daughter and sons will set up Burnside's Roadside stand. “We plan to turn a negative into a positive,” Dawley said.
Loudoun plans to stay rural
The Loudoun planning commissioners, in the middle of rewriting the county's comprehensive traffic plan, toyed with the idea of adding a new north-south corridor that would have intersected with U.S. 15 just north of New Road, which is a mile north of the county line. Had they kept to that plan, they would have recommended making U.S. 15 four lanes from the county line to that intersection.
The probability of massive local resistance to adding the new road has taken that idea off the planning map, and the recommendation from the commissioners is to keep U.S. 15 at its current two lanes from the county line to the new roundabouts at U.S. 50.
U.S. 50 to Leesburg and on to the Point of Rocks
The Loudoun Planning Commission is recommending that U.S. 15 stay two lanes from U.S. 50 to Route 704 just north of Oatlands, and go to four lanes from Route 704 to Leesburg at Woodlea Drive. Leesburg is currently widening portions of King Street (U.S. 15 within town limits) and putting in a pedestrian/bicycle trail from Davis Avenue to Virts Corner (Gleedsville Road).
The commission envisions the entire Leesburg Bypass at six lanes, with a flyover at Sycolin Road.
These improvements have yet to be reviewed by the supervisors, and none has been funded.
From Leesburg north to the river at Point of Rocks, U.S. 15 stays at two lanes in the commissioners' recommended comprehensive transportation plan.
That suits Albert Heider, who has been selling fruits, vegetables, flowers and farm products on the west side of the highway, just south of Lucketts, for the last 16 years. A four-lane highway would mean traffic would be so fast “no one would stop.”
And up in Lucketts, Suzanne Eblen has marketed antiques and collectibles from the Old Lucketts Store since 1996. She would hate to see the road “improved” to four lanes. “That would spell the end to the rural nature of the area,” she said.
The traffic light that went in several years at Lucketts/Stumptown roads and U.S. 15 has been a boon, Eblen said. For one, she can get across the road to open the store in the morning. And it makes it more likely that drivers will pull over and take a look at her wares, knowing they will be able to get back on the road.
Paul Smith of the Loudoun Times-Mirror contributed to this story.
Route 15 needs to be expanded to four lanes, both north and south. Expanding to the south (to Route 50) would be much easier than to the north through Lucketts (to Point of Rocks) and this should be a priority. The expansion to the north is also needed but apparently the BOS is still trying to get VA and MD to agree to another bridge crossing. This will never happen so expanding Route 15 to Point of Rocks will be necessary or the road will become nothing but a parking lot, which it already is at rush hour and on weekends.
It is ridiculous for the BOS to remove these improvements from their comprehensive traffice plan. Once again, the BOS has shown that their concern is not with the future of Loudoun, but in ensuring they can be reelected by not ruffling anyones feathers.
Posted by dkajut
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