Active Prince William

Advancing active mobility in greater Prince William, Virginia

Category: Prince William County (Page 1 of 7)

PWC Seeks Public Input for Its Traffic Safety Action Plan

February 14, 2025 /

Two years ago, Prince William County and the City of Manassas Park were jointly awarded nearly $1 million in federal funds from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All program to develop traffic safety action plans for each locality.

For the development of Manassas Park’s Vision Zero Action Plan, the first community input meeting was held on October 30, 2024, and a second community meeting is anticipated in “early 2025”.

In the poster above, Prince William County announces a pair of community meetings for the development its “Comprehensive Traffic Safety Action Plan” on two consecutive Thursdays, February 20 and 27, in Woodbridge and Manassas, respectively.  Adoption of the final County plan is anticipated for this May.

We encourage everyone interested to learn about the development of this action plan and to share your experience and insights on traffic safety in Prince William County.   Learn more on the CTSAP webpage.

 

 

 

 

Our Comments on PWC’s Proposed Route 1 Widening

January 21, 2025 /
A bus priority lane on University Boulevard in Montgomery County, MD
On January 16, 2025, Active Prince William sent the following comments to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) in response to a new funding request by County staff to initiate the widening of a new segment of U.S. Route 1 (between Cardinal Dr and Dumfries Rd), to create a high-speed arterial roadway with six through travel lanes for personal motor vehicles.

PWC BOCS,

After reviewing Agenda Item 8A on the 1/21/25 PWC BOCS Agenda, we are disappointed there was no public announcement and input opportunity for these priorities/plans before the agenda’s release.

While we  acknowledge that the Route 123/Old Bridge Rd flyover, Sudley Manor Dr/Route 234 Interchange, and Clover Hill Rd/Route 234 Intersection are active projects, we are disappointed that the Route 1 widening project is part of this agenda item.

This Route 1 corridor segment, which includes the highest ridership Omniride local route (53 | Dumfries Connector), provides an opportunity to scope a major transit project by adding bus lanes or business access and transit (BAT) lanes.

Route 1 should be designed as a walkable and livable mixed-use regional activity center, not as a mini I-95. The county should reject the long-discredited mindset that widening commercial roadways is a viable long-term strategy that improves resident quality of life.

Such widening projects induce an even-higher vehicle mode share, burden families with increased vehicle ownership costs, render active mobility unsafe and miserable, and generate negative environmental externalities, such as noise, air, and water pollution.  This project would depress transit ridership in favor of increased vehicle speeds, reduced safety, and more traffic congestion for future generations. These outcomes are in direct conflict with many proposed strategic plan goal elements.

While PWC transportation staff is proposing widening Route 1 this week, Arlington County and VDOT are recommending removing interchanges from their section of Route 1 and lowering the speed limit to 25 MPH, to reconnect the community as part of major economic development initiative, while Fairfax County and VDOT are advancing a major Bus Rapid Transit initiative along Route 1.

Prince William County is no longer a rural/exurban county with 200,000 people like Stafford County; it’s an increasingly urban county of almost 500,000 people that must significantly diversify its transportation mode share to improve quality of life for its residents.

We need to prioritize affordable housing AND affordable transportation.

We recommend the PWC BOCS:

  • Gather resident input on more sustainable alternatives for this Route 1 segment
  • Initiate a Citizen Transportation Advisory Commission, to vet transportation project priorities in a public forum before they reach the BOCS agenda
  • Prioritize projects that reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled

Thank you for considering this feedback.

Mark Scheufler & Allen Muchnick, Co-Chairs
Active Prince William
Advancing active mobility for a more livable, equitable, & sustainable greater Prince William, Virginia
Twitter: @Active_PW https://twitter.com/Active_PW

Prince William Supervisors: Allow Public Input on New Transportation Projects!

December 16, 2024 /

The consent agenda for the May 14, 2024 meeting of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors included four separate items to either ratify or authorize staff initiatives to seek state or federal funds to advance numerous transportation projects (Items 5B through 5D) or to endorse the final design of a significant and somewhat contentious highway project (Item 5A).  Item 5B alone ratified the pre-applications for seven separate highway projects to seek SMART SCALE funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation. 

Since Active Prince William has repeatedly advocated for greater transparency and public input opportunities in transportation decision-making, including which projects are advanced for new funding requests and how proposed projects are designed, our co-chair, Allen Muchnick, delivered the following statement during Public Comment Time at the 2 pm meeting.

Public Comment at the May 14, 2024 2 PM Meeting of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, Statement of Allen Muchnick, Active Prince William Co-Chair

Good afternoon.  I’m Allen Muchnick, co-chair of Active Prince William and a City of Manassas resident.

Under Items 5B through 5D on today’s consent agenda, you authorized (or ratified) new submissions for transportation project grant applications that had never been the subject of a prior public hearing.  Moreover, this public comment period was only held after the consent agenda was already approved.

Thus, the public was given little or no opportunity to influence the mix of projects submitted for funding or to ascertain that the project scope and amount of funds requested would be adequate to suitably accommodate all travel modes.

Active Prince William has repeatedly asked that the Board of County Supervisors require the Prince William County Department of Transportation to hold advertised public hearings to present its proposed new transportation funding submissions for public input before they are submitted for the Board’s approval.

Such annual or semi-annual public hearings could be held at a standalone venue or at a Planning Commission meeting.

Thank you for considering this input.

Promote Public Input on New Transportation Funding Requests BEFORE the Local Governing Body’s Endorsement

February 19, 2024 /

Active Prince William believes that early and proactive community involvement in the development of significant transportation improvement and planning projects would better integrate the community’s needs and preferences into the selection and scope of those projects.

Presently, however, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (and the local governing bodies for greater Prince William’s cities and towns) routinely endorse staff recommendations for non-local transportation funding requests with minimal public notice or opportunities for citizen comment.

Typically, the public first learns of such funding requests for new transportation projects by discovering them on a Consent Agenda for an upcoming governing body meeting, held before any public comment period.  This lack of transparent decision-making, limited public notice, and precluded public comment effectively deprives the public of any opportunity to meaningfully influence the nature and scope of the transportation projects that are advanced for funding.

In the Fall of 2023, we included the following question in our survey for all Prince William Board of County Supervisor candidates:

Question 1: Do you support requiring the PWC [Prince William County] Department of Transportation to hold advertised public hearings before the Board of County Supervisors [BOCS] is scheduled to endorse any future applications for regional (e.g., NVTA, NVTC Commuter Choice), state, or federal transportation improvement funds?

Four of the current BOCS members (Andrea Bailey, Deshundra Jefferson, Bob Weir, and Margaret Franklin) responded “Yes”, three others (Victor Angry, Tom Gordy, and Kenny Boddye) selected “Need more information”, and nobody selected “No”.

To not burden the already-crowded BOCS meeting agendas, this public comment on the County’s proposed new transportation funding requests could be solicited at standalone public meetings or at a scheduled meeting of an appropriate advisory body, such as the Prince William County Planning Commission.  Ideally, however, 1) public input would also be solicited online, 2) any staff presentation and advertised public hearing would include a virtual meeting component, and 3) the PWC Department of Transportation would be required to provide both a written summary of the public comments received and a written response to those public comments.

Since non-local transportation funding programs typically have an annual or biennial schedule for new project submissions that is announced many months in advance, the Prince William County Department of Transportation should be able to present all their proposals for new transportation projects being considered in the coming months at one or two consolidated advertised public hearings each year.

We call on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to issue a directive to the Prince William County Executive with the following components:

  1.  Require the Prince William County Department of Transportation (PWC DOT) to present–for public comment at an advertised public hearing–any proposed first-time request for regional, state, or federal funding for a new transportation or trail capital project or planning activity, in advance of bringing that funding request to the Board of County Supervisors for its endorsement.
  2. Cite all applicable non-local funding programs, including the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s (NVTA) 70% and 30% funds; federal RSTP or CMAQ allocations which are endorsed by the NVTA; the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission’s (NVTC) I-66 and I-95/I-395 Commuter Choice programs; National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) technical assistance grants (e.g., Transportation-Land Use Connections, Transit within Reach, Regional Roadway Safety Program); Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside requests submitted to either the TPB or VDOT; VDOT’s SMART SCALE, Revenue Sharing, and HSIP programs; the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Recreational Trails Program; USDOT discretionary grant programs (e.g., RAISE, SS4A); Congressional earmark requests; and the Federal Transit Administration’s Enhanced Mobility Program.
  3. Allow the PWC DOT to conduct these public hearings at any appropriate venue that includes online viewing and public comment submission components, including at scheduled Planning Commission meetings.
  4. Specify that the public hearing must be held at least 30 to 60 days before the endorsement request is scheduled to be placed on the BOCS agenda.
  5. Require the PWC DOT to compile a written summary of–and response to–the public comments received and include that summary with the other BOCS meeting materials when they present their funding request for BOCS approval.

We believe that the process outlined above would provide valuable community input–near the very beginning of the project development process–for both the PWC Department of Transportation and the Board of County Supervisors.

Hoadly Road Needs Proper Bike Lanes

February 18, 2024 /

We recently learned that the Prince William County Department of Transportation will soon conduct a Hoadly Road Planning Study to identify priorities for funding and then building segments of a continuous shared-use path (i.e., a 10-foot wide asphalt sidepath) along Hoadly Road, between the Prince William Parkway (Route 294) and Dumfries Road (Route 234).  Hoadly Road currently lacks any sidepath, except along the 0.4-mile segment between Dale Boulevard and Spriggs Road.

Active Prince William strongly supports establishing a continuous sidepath along at least one side of Hoadly Road, especially since such shared-use pedestrian facilities would link Prince William County’s two major sidepaths–along Routes 234 and 294.

However, the Mobility Chapter of the current Prince William County Comprehensive Plan (Pathways to 2040), which the Board of County Supervisors adopted in December 2022, is deficient in not also calling for on-road bicycle lanes along Hoadly Road (see page 73 here).

There is no inherent reason why highway corridors should include only one type of bicycle facility–e.g., only a sidepath–especially since conventional bike lanes can be retrofitted on multi-lane roadways much more quickly and inexpensively and since having both on-road and off-road bicycle facilities could best serve our highly diverse population of bicycle riders.   In addition, bike lanes are more readily and promptly cleared of snow and ice after winter storms.

Furthermore, bike-lane retrofits have the added benefits of reducing motorist speeding (by reducing travel lane widths) and of increasing the safety and comfort of people traveling on the sidewalks or sidepaths (by increasing the noise and wind buffer from vehicular traffic).

Hoadly Road currently has an excessively high design speed, a posted speed limit of 50 MPH, and poor pedestrian infrastructure.  Consequently, according to Virginia’s publicly searchable traffic crash database, over the past decade (2014-2023 calendar years), Hoadly Road was the site of 403 traffic crashes, 310 crash-associated injuries, and 4 traffic fatalities.  Retrofitted bike lanes on Hoadly Road would help alleviate those unsafe conditions for all modes of travel.

When widened some decades ago, Hoadly Road gained continuous wide paved shoulders that were well suited for bicycling, and at least some of those shoulder segments were subsequently marked as bike lanes.

US Bicycle Route 1 (USBR 1) is a Maine-to-Florida bicycling route–primarily intended for experienced bicycle travelers–that has existed for decades.  USBR1 in Virginia, upon VDOT’s written application, was designated by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) back in 1982, more than 40 years ago.  Although USBR1 through Prince William County was originally aligned with Minnieville Road, between Old Bridge Road and Dumfries Road, VDOT and Prince William County largely failed to include appropriate bicycle facilities along much of Minnieville Road during the ensuing decades. as segments of Minnieville Road were sequentially widened to accommodate increased development and traffic.

More than a decade ago, VDOT commissioned a study by a transportation consulting firm to re-evaluate the routing of US Bicycle Route 1 through Northern Virginia, including Prince William County.  As a result of that study, USBR1 was officially realigned to follow a segment of the Prince William Parkway and all of Hoadly Road, to avoid the segment of Minnieville Road north of Cardinal Drive that still lacks bicycle facilities.

As noted on page 11 of that USBR1 realignment study report (emphasis added below):

Although less direct than the other alternatives, the recommended alternative (via Minnieville Road, Prince William Parkway, and Hoadly Road) offers a higher average BLOS [Bicycle Level of Service] (B), primarily the result of lower ADT [average daily traffic] and wider shoulders. The route segment along Minnieville Road and Prince William Parkway has high ADT (up to 45,000 vehicles per day), but also provides shared use paths or wide shoulders for much of the duration. Meanwhile, Hoadly Road has approximately 13,000 to 23,000 vehicles per day and provides 8‐foot shoulders along many segments.

Google Street View reveals that various segments of Hoadly Road currently do have marked bike lanes, but these are discontinuous and often inappropriately situated on the right side of long right-turn-only lanes, such as here, here, here, and here.   Glaring deficiencies in Hoadly Road’s “bike lanes” were noted by a resident back in 2010 [mislabeled a “bike path” in that blog post].

Since the entirely of Hoadly Road has been the designated alignment of US Bicycle Route 1 for nearly the past decade, Active Prince William asks that VDOT and Prince William County proactively collaborate to retrofit continuous and well-designed bike lanes–and, ideally, buffered or separated bike lanes–along all of Hoadly Road at the earliest possible opportunity.

We also recommend adding the planned Hoadly Road sidepath as a designated segment of the National Capital Trail Network (NCTN) when the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board again updates its NCTN map in the coming year.

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