|
This Department of Motor Vehicles diagram shows vehicles in two lanes making proper turns together. |
GET AN early look
A public hearing on the project design will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Virginia Department of Transportation auditorium
The widening project would begin near Interstate 95 at McLane Drive, and would expand U.S. 17 to six lanes from there to Stafford Lakes Parkway.
VDOT officials will be available at the meeting to talk about the potential impact on property owners in the project zone, relocation assistance and early construction schedules.
Anyone who cannot attend the meeting can mail comments to Michelle Shropshire,
Email: michelle.shropshire@vdot.virginia.gov, with "Route 17 PH Comment" in the subject line.
I feel I should temper everyone's enthusiasm for a U.S. 17 that can carry more cars per hour with some financial reality.
While the project has $14.9 million appropriated for the preliminary engineering and right of way phase, it still needs another $36 million for construction.
Crossing the Harry W. Nice Bridge over the Potomac River on U.S. 301 between King George County and Maryland could take longer this week during the daytime.
Traffic will be reduced to one lane between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. today through Thursday afternoon.
Vehicles will be directed to take turns using the open lane. Workers are installing fiber-optic cables and working on cameras, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority.
Dear Kelly: Now that Bragg Road is complete, will anyone be coming to paint the proper "puppy tracks" in the road from Bragg to State Route 3 eastbound? I have had to lay on my horn 20 to 30 times to "scare" people back into their lane during the turn east onto Route 3 from Bragg. It would be so simple for someone to paint these and save me from having to grind my 36-inch tires into some poor little car because they are not paying attention. Please?
--Todd Ross, Spotsylvania
For anyone not familiar with "puppy tracks," they are the dashed, curving white lines that indicate the proper destination lane to drivers as they turn right or left through an intersection.
VDOT will add puppy tracks at every left-turn pattern in the Bragg Road corridor, said VDOT's Tina Bundy. I drove through the intersection you mention over the weekend, and the puppy tracks were already there!
While the Bragg Road project is nearly done and open to traffic, VDOT is still finishing up a few final tasks this month on the median, shoulders and pavement, including painting the puppy tracks.
Puppy tracks usually appear in large intersections, but lately they seem to be needed everywhere there are double turn lanes, if the questions to "Getting There" this summer are any indication.
Lots of readers have been writing in to say they've narrowly avoided a crash with another car that tried to vault into their lane during a turn. It seems appalling when it happens to you--as in, "Hey, I'm driving here!" I was nearly taken out by a van on River Road in Maryland that just drifted, slowly and nonchalantly, into the inner left lane when he'd been in the outer left lane.
I'm under no illusion that this column can solve the choose-your-own-destination-lane problem. But I'm still going to try.
For drivers in a double left-turn pattern: If you are waiting to turn left from the inner left-turn lane (the lane farthest to the left), you should turn into the lane farthest to the left. This is the lane closest to the median or the road's center line. For cars waiting to turn left from the outer left-turn lane, you should end up in the lane one lane to the right of the innermost left lane. It's hard to describe in words, but there is a great illustration on Page 11 of the Virginia's driver manual, online at dmv.state.va.us.
Kelly Hannon is The Free Lance-Star's transportation reporter.
