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The controversial Outer Connector project that was to relieve traffic congestion in the region has now been removed from the area's 20-year road plan. Date published: 12/13/2003 By EDIE GROSS The Outer Connector isn't dead yet, but it's pretty darn close. The region's transportation policy board voted this week to remove any mention of the controversial parkway from its 20-year road plan. As a general rule, projects not listed in the region's plan go unfunded. And no money means no Outer Connector, which was estimated to cost more than $150 million. Dave Ogle, Fredericksburg District administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation and a supporter of the Outer Connector, hesitated to pronounce the project dead and gone. But he wasn't optimistic either. "It's in a rather permanent state of slumber," he said. VDOT and other supporters had touted the Outer Connector as a way to decrease congestion on Interstate 95, U.S. 17 and State Route 3 west. If built, the parkway would start from the new interchange at I-95 and State Route 627 in Stafford County, loop west and south across U.S. 17 and the Rappahannock River, and end at Route 3 in Spotsylvania near the Mullins farm. But opponents attacked the project on several fronts, saying it would cross a pristine section of the Rappahannock River, come too close to the Chancellorsville battlefield and encourage sprawl along western parts of Route 3 and U.S. 17. While the Board of Supervisors in Stafford County generally supported the project, elected officials in Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg recently voted against it. All three communities are represented on the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board, which voted Wednesday to remove the Outer Connector from its long-range transportation plans. Spotsylvania Supervisor Hap Connors, a member of FAMPO, said he worried the parkway would be too expensive and promote too much growth. "I share the concern that this beltway would be a magnet for sprawl and would litter our countryside with strip malls," he said. "There's nothing I can do today to guarantee forever that there will not be sprawl out there [on Route 3]. The one thing I can do is not approve something that will be a magnet for sprawl." Ogle and others with VDOT had argued that the road would not cause sprawl if county officials controlled the zoning around it.
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