Tuesday, February 14, 2012

**UPDATED** VDOT Suspends All Secondary Road Repaving in NOVA

Last week, a constituent emailed me about the condition of Sherwood Hall Lane, a major road in my district that connects U.S. 1 with several major roads including Parkers Lane, Fort Hunt Road and the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
My constituent suggested that a 100 yard stretch of road could be milled and repaved between the fire station and Fordson Road.  He described the present surface as "a minefield" and noted that we were able to recently get Fort Hunt Road repaved. 

I have cut and pasted the response I received below because I thought many of my constituents might find it enlightening.
[Your local VDOT representative] asked me to thank you for and respond to your email requesting paving on Sherwood Hall Lane.
As you are aware, many roads in Northern VA, especially subdivision and other secondary streets are in need of paving. Current resources at this time are only sufficient to prioritize high volume roadways such as the interstate and primary routes, for example, Routes 1, 7, 28, 50, etc.
We understand that Sherwood Hall needs paving, and when funding allows, we will be happy to consider it. However, we expect minimal paving to be completed on secondary routes in Northern VA over the next two years.
Nonetheless, please be assured that we will continue to perform interim maintenance as necessary to ensure the safety and pavement integrity of Sherwood Hall Lane. By copy of this letter, the appropriate maintenance manager has been notified of this concern, and will continue to assess and monitor your roadway’s needs until resurfacing can occur.
Thank you again for your correspondence. Please feel free to contact me anytime I may be of assistance.
This is not the fault of the Virginia Department of Transportation.  They have no money left.

Secondary roads are roads that are numbered over 600.  It is incredible that it has come to this in Virginia.

**UPDATE**

I made some phone calls and VDOT is going to look at their resources again and see if this is something they can consider.  We'll see what happens. 

1 comment:

  1. Scott,

    Thanks for following up and giving this on-going concern visibility. Also "Patch" has raised the visiblity of this concern with an article by James Cullum citing this blog and VDOT's response to our inquiry. http://mountvernon.patch.com/articles/vdot-no-major-secondary-road-maintenance-in-nova-for-two-years

    ReplyDelete