The Virginia Department of Transportation last night announced that it will make nearly $300,000 worth of safety improvements to a curve on State Route 3 in Culpeper that has claimed six lives in the past six years.
Most of the improvements will be visual, according to VDOT's Northwest Regional Operations Director Dean Gustafson, and won't involve any actual realignment because engineers contend that the curve was built to safely handle traffic going 60 mph.
The problem, Gustafson told Route 3 residents who attended a public hearing, is that too many motorists are traveling well past the posted 55-mph speed limit.
According to a recent study, 85 percent of traffic is traveling at speeds as high as 64 mph, which has contributed in many cases to the 14 crashes (four fatal with six deaths) that have occurred in an 1,100-foot stretch since 2003.
To slow motorists down, VDOT plans to make signs larger, post a 50-mph "advisory" speed limit, add centerline pavement markers, install wider tape markings along the curve and upgrade markings to a more reflective epoxy.
The highway department will also install rumble strips at either end of the curve to get the driver's attention and widen shoulders or add them where they barely exist now.
Adding extra shoulder width will also allow VDOT to widen each lane from 11 feet--the standard when the road was built in the 1940s--to 12 feet, which is standard now.
That 11-foot lane width and narrow shoulders were said to be the curve's only possible design flaws.
"When a motorist makes an error, there is very little chance for him to correct," Vijay Kulkarni, VDOT's Northwest Region assistant regional traffic engineer, told the audience.
The curve is near the middle of the only remaining two-lane stretch of Route 3--about 4.3 miles--between Culpeper and Fredericksburg. Located about a half-mile east of Stevensburg, area residents--and VDOT officials--remain somewhat confounded as to why it is the scene of so many crashes.
"When I moved there in the 1970s, everyone said you're moving to that bad curve," said Joanne Russell, whose home is just west of State Route 739. "I said, 'That is not a bad curve' but for some reason it is a bad curve."
Kulkarni agreed that the highway meets all VDOT standards.
"Motorists are just not tracking the curve," he said.
An increased number of chevrons to be placed in the curve will hopefully address that issue, Gustafson said. He added that the rumble strips should also get drivers' attention and that passing zones will be adjusted slightly.
At the outset of the hearing, Culpeper District resident engineer Donald Gore said that this stretch of two-lane road has long been slated to become a four-lane highway. Money, or lack of it, has been the problem and, with current VDOT budget woes, likely will remain an impediment for the next decade.
"We're not even going to talk about four-laning tonight," Gore said.
Gustafson told the group that some improvements should begin in about two weeks while others--like widening the shoulders and adding centerline pavement markers--may take six months or more.
He said that many of the improvements should be in place by the time the Route 3 Association, the resident group that has been pushing this issue, meets again on June 30.
Donnie Johnston:
Email: djohnston@freelancestar.com