VDOT to reduce tree loss on Braddock Road
The Virginia Department of Transportation has reduced the amount of tree loss in the Braddock Road Multimodal Improvements Project, agency officials announced at a recent community meeting.
The project would create 10-foot-wide shared-use paths along both sides Braddock Road, as well as intersection improvements at Ravensworth Road, Wakefield Chapel Road/Danbury Forest Drive, Rolling Road, and Burke Lake Road. Braddock Road would continue to have three lanes in each direction.
Phase 1, from Southampton Drive to Ravensworth Road, is fully funded with about $78.6 million from Virginia’s SmartScale program.
Right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation for Phase 1 would start in spring 2025. Construction would start in fall 2028 and would take about three years.
Phase 2, between Southampton Drive and Humphries Drive, is not funded beyond design approval. Fairfax County and VDOT are exploring funding options for construction of Phase 2.
Discussions on this project started in 2014, when a citizen task force was formed to consider options for improving traffic flow and pedestrian safety on Braddock Road.
Throughout the planning process, residents have questioned why a new shared-use path is needed when there are existing trails along much of Braddock Road.
VDOT Consultant Project Manager Phil Lohr said sections of the existing trail are only six feet wide, making the trail unsuitable as a shared-use path, which needs to accommodate bicyclists and wheelchair users. Also, parts of the trail are too steep and have limited visibility.
Related story: VDOT recommends improvements for key intersections on Braddock Road
The proposed shared-use trail would meet ADA requirements and would have an eight-foot buffer from the curb, Lohr said. It would incorporate 27 percent of the existing trail.
VDOT has revised the plan for the shared-use path to preserve more trees by:
- consolidating stormwater management facilities, so there would be 10 larger ones, instead of 21 as proposed in the earlier draft, and
- adding nine retaining walls with a total length of 2,900 feet to reduce the need for grading.
Both of those strategies together would increase the number of trees preserved by nearly 70 percent within the existing VDOT right of way over the previous proposal – from 28 percent of trees preserved to 47 percent.
Within the limits of disturbance, tree preservation would increase from 24 percent in the previous draft to 41 percent.
The retaining walls in Phase 1 would add $2.6 million to $5.3 million to the project cost. The variation in cost is because the type of wall hasn’t been determined. Adding another 2,000 feet of retaining walls to Phase 2 would cost $2.5 million to $4.9 million.
The revised proposal also drops the pedestrian bridge over Braddock Road west of Burke Lake Road. That will offset the cost of adding retaining walls. A survey found community members are split almost evenly between retaining and eliminating the bridge from the project design.
The latest draft also revises the design of the Ravensworth Road intersection. The southbound right-turn lane on Ravensworth would be extended 200 feet to shorten the queue and reduce the incentive for drivers to cut through the parking lot at Ravensworth Baptist Church.
In addition, the shared-use path would be extended along the west side of Ravensworth Road to Heritage Drive.
Comments can be submitted online or emailed to [email protected]. by Aug. 7.
So the improvements stop abruptly at the edge of Annandale — as if people who live there are too poor to deserve a safe walkway.? Great work FFx county staff – you’ve managed to transport the caste system from your home country to the USA.
The r-cut alignment at Wakefield Chapel Rd is unacceptable. The realignment of Danbury Forest Dr to turn it into a four way intersection is the right answer. Please advocate for this solution.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, “in North Carolina, there was a 17-percent decrease in total crashes” and “up to a 30-percent increase in throughput” may be achieved. (https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/09059/) The R-cut is unfamiliar, but once we give it a chance, we drivers on Braddock Road may grow to appreciate it.
As the Friends of Accotink Creek, our outlook is toward preservation of the watershed, its woods, and its wetlands. A realignment of Danbury Forest Drive with Wakefield Chapel Drive would sacrifice all of these as it crossed the wooded wetlands of the Long Branch tributary of Accotink Creek. There is little expectation that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would approve this sacrifice when alternatives exist.
Both Accotink Creek and the Long Branch tributary are designated impaired waters which Fairfax County is obliged to spend many millions of dollars to rectify. A standard intersection realignment here would create a setback in that work, obliging even more spending in mitigation.
More about Long Branch – https://www.accotink.org/2020/LongBranchCentralProject2020.htm