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Transportation: List long, money short

October 7, 2008 12:15 am

By KELLY HANNON

Fredericksburg-area residents know traffic congestion. Now a new regional plan puts a figure on what it will take to ease the load on roads, rails, trails and transit.

The bad news: The Long Range Transportation Plan for 2035 estimates there's a $3.2 billion gap between what the city and surrounding counties need and the money that's likely to come in.

"We have this almost inconceivably big problem, and we have a virtually indescribable lack of resources to fix these things," said Stafford County Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer, chairman of the Fredericksburg Metropolitan Planning Organization. "We're shooting BB guns at cannons. It's not a fair war here," he said. Without more money, "we're never going to be able to make a dent in the projects."

Area planners have spent months laboring over the extensive plan that lays out, in rare detail, what the Fredericksburg area needs to build or widen to cope with traffic.

By 2035, the 300,000 population of the Fredericksburg area will double to 600,000 people, according to the plan.

The federal government requires regions across the nation to develop such plans. However, Fredericksburg-area leaders want it to be more than another dry government document that gathers dust.

FAMPO has rolled out an ambitious public campaign that includes meetings in each locality, starting next Tuesday in Stafford. After soliciting public comment through the fall, the planning organization will vote on a final plan in December.

"I'm hoping that we have a good turnout at all of the meetings," said Spotsylvania County Supervisor Hap Connors, FAMPO vice chairman.

" We do need to have a community dialogue about how to tackle these challenges and maybe look for opportunities there, too."

The public needs to know "that funding from our usual sources--state and feds--is not going to keep up with our transportation needs," said Fredericksburg Councilman Matt Kelly, and past chairman of FAMPO.

King George County Supervisor Jim Howard, a non-voting member of FAMPO, said he expects area residents to get involved.

"I think there is a different mood," Howard said. "I think people really want the state to take some action, to find some resources to free up some money to get some of these projects started."

The plan attempts to set aside political interests over who's getting the most transportation money over the next 25 years by ranking each project based on objective criteria.

Projects that relieve congestion and improve safety are given the greatest weight, but public support, the impact on the environment, and the project's "smart growth" factor are considered, too.

Past transportation plans have lacked this prioritization.

"That was a big step for us to take," Kelly said, adding the process lacked the "usual bickering" over which projects went where.

There are two major sections to the plan: Roads and bicycle/pedestrian projects. Public transit is addressed in a separate plan.

Each section has a needs plan, which looks at what the area will need to keep pace with growth by 2035. There's also a financially constrained plan, which starts by looking at how much money is expected to be available for transportation by 2035. The constrained plan looks at what projects can be accomplished.

The needs plan is longer than the constrained plan. For roads alone, the area needs $4.6 billion in projects. The constrained plan estimates the area will receive around $1.4 billion in transportation funding over the next 27 years, leaving the $3.2 billion gap.

Interstate 95, the backbone of the region, is an example of the constrained plan's limits.

To handle congestion by 2035, Interstate 95 needs to be widened to eight lanes from the Stafford-Prince William line to the Spotsylvania-Caroline line.

But that project is in the "needs" plan only, since it would cost more than $300 million.

Only one local I-95 project in the "constrained" plan would be built by 2015. With limited money, the area could reconstruct the Courthouse Road interchange in Stafford. And that's about it.

By 2020, the area could build a new interchange in Fredericksburg between the Rappahannock River and State Route 3, connecting to a proposed toll road bypassing Route 3 to Gordon Road.

A new interchange between Massaponax and Thornburg could be added, too. But other than High Occupancy Toll lanes, there would be no new traffic lanes on I-95.

The regional transit plan calls for expanded Fredericksburg Regional Transit bus service and more Virginia Railway Express trains. Commuter parking would grow from 6,913 spaces to 18,526 spaces. New bus lines should run from the region to Washington.

Something the long-range plan cannot do is change the way homes, schools and shopping centers are built.

One of the plan's "key findings" argues job, housing and recreation centers need to be located close together, making it easier for residents to leave their cars at home.

Greater concentrations of development means transit can collect many people at one point, said Lloyd Robinson, transportation administrator at FAMPO, and one of the plan's lead authors.

The region's congestion is "a transportation problem, but we can't solve it just by looking at transportation," Robinson said.

Zoning powers will remain with local counties and cities. FAMPO acts as an advisory group.

Dudenhefer said he is not sure the concentrated development idea can work as well in Fredericksburg as it does in Northern Virginia, where apartments and offices cluster around Metro stations. The Brooke VRE station is in rural eastern Stafford, he pointed out.

"What artery are we going to congregate around?" Dudenhefer asked.

But Connors said development is a vital part of the upcoming debate.

"I think we have to make land use the primary point of discussion, especially as we look to the future," Connors said. " We can't afford to make the same land-use decisions."

Kelly Hannon: 540/374-5436
Email: khannon@freelancestar.com