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Can rumble strips be placed on Massaponax Church Road, and who has the right of way at Sanford Drive and U.S. 17 in Stafford? Date published: 2/1/2010
DRIVERS may have What's going on? U.S. 17 is being widened to four general traffic lanes at the intersection, said Charlie Kilpatrick, vice president for commercial construction at the Silver Cos. In addition, two left turn lanes are being added to U.S. 17 northbound, along with a right turn lane from U.S. 17 southbound. It's all in preparation for the opening of Hospital Boulevard, which will lead to HCA's Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, which is to open this summer. Road work will be ongoing for the next 90 days, Kilpatrick said. The Silver Cos. is building new roads surrounding the hospital, including a bridge over Interstate 95 that will extend Spotsylvania Parkway and link with Hospital Boulevard. Around April, drivers will be able to drive on Spotsylvania Parkway across the finished bridge, connect with Hospital Boulevard and continue on to Germanna Point Drive or U.S. 17, eliminating the need to drive down U.S. 1, Kilpatrick said. New hospital and road signs will be installed Dear Kelly: At the traffic signal at Sanford Drive and U.S. 17 in Stafford, when making a right turn from Sanford onto U.S. 17 heading toward Interstate 95, there seems to be a discrepancy with the lights. The right turn signal for Sanford is lit, as well as the left U.S. 17 turn onto Sanford. The problem is that the left turn signal from U.S. 17 also allows a U-turn to head back to U.S. 17 southbound. Overall, leaving both turns active allows for the potential of accidents with both parties having the right of way based on both having green turn signals. --Daniel Morio, Fredericksburg Vehicles turning right from Sanford Drive onto U.S. 17 southbound have the right of way over U-turns, even though both have green signals. The Virginia Department of Transportation will post a sign clearing this up in the coming weeks. I received the following response from Larry Settle, lead engineering technician in VDOT's Northern Virginia District traffic engineering office.
Following up on these questions would be so easy for a
reporter to not spend much time on and just move on but Ms.
Hannon is dedicated to doing yeoman efforts on these things
and deserves an ATTABOY!
on traffic infractions and tickets but there are some
situations where there is abuse going on and in those cases
- I would submit to wide-open that when deputies do that -
that they undermine support and you end up with folks who
have no sympathy when cuts are proposed because in their
minds - the deputies giving "gotcha" tickets will get cut and
there will be less opportunity for "gotcha" tickets.
But I have absolutely no sympathy with the scofflaw types...
but "gotcha" undermines public support.
CLEARLY a configuration that in many other places would
use a YIELD sign.
More than a few folks had previously asked why it had to be
a STOP sign instead of a YIELD and the VDOT answer was
essentially non-responsive and more along the lines of "in
our opinion" ... The fact that they finally changed it to a
YIELD after stubbornly refusing to do so earlier is an
indication that the initial decision was - at the least -an
acknowledgement that the STOP wasinconsistent with their
signing of similar places.
Good for them doing that too. I never had an issue stopping at it. It's not the people's jobs to make their own road rules up, if the sign says stop then stop and look. 1-2 seconds aren't going to kill you in the grand scheme even if you do not agree with the stop sign. They also sit on that Parkway with radar to catch the people who believe 45 is just too darn slow for it. Wonder if they ever caught that Spotsy Board member who publicly bragged about doing 60 across it?
are a significant problem that involves balancing safety
with NOT creating a bottleneck... and it just appears to me
that VDOT makes changes but then does not come back
and see the effect of those changes and it is maddening...
We need a better way to do permissive left turns because
too many people simply do not clearly understand the
difference between a green left turn arrow signal and a
green ball. it sounds stupid but it's true - some folks think
the green ball means they have the right of way 2 turn
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