Yes, 10 years! There is no sense of urgency by Supervisor Higgins or County Staff.
This timeline to complete the first Phase of Route 15 improvements is unacceptable, especially when the Right of Way (ROW) already exists to do so.
Loudoun County secured $54M of funding from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) on June 14, 2018 to widen approximately 3.5 miles of Route 15 (from Battlefield Parkway to a point before, at or after Montresor Road).
Please see the FY 2018-2023 Six Year Program of the NVTA at the link below:
FY2018-2023-SYP-Project-List-Adopted-6.14.18-web-version.pdf
Combined with $26M of County funds, the total funding for the Phase I of the project will be $80M.
Sixty days later, and there is no action. To better understand the problem and lack of urgency below are some points to better understand why this project will take 10 years to complete:
- The funding is secured, but the project has not started
- The final concept design has not been presented to the Board of Supervisors (September 2018?)
- The County was given control of the project by VDOT in December of 2017
- No detailed project plan with activities, deliverables, accountable person(s) and dates exist
- There are no County staff member(s) that are dedicated to this project on a full time basis
- Special interests continue to demand further delays
All we hear from Supervisor Higgins is that everyone is “working hard”. There is a difference between “working hard” and “results”. County Staff and Geary Higgins have had close to a year to figure out how to accelerate the project.
Demand that Supervisors Geary Higgins, Kristen Umstattd and Phyllis Randall:
- Immediately start the project with the $3.5M that has been available since July 1, 2018 with legislative action at the September 20, 2018 Board meeting to form a dedicated project management team to accelerate the Route 15 project! This project will not start until Supervisors Higgins and Umstattd introduce this ACTION (which should have happened at the July 3, 2018 Board of Supervisors Meeting)!
- Request that this project be completed in the normal 3-year time-frame by streamlining the section 106 federal and state agency project review. Further, this process should happen in parallel with the engineering and design phase.
- Stand up to the special interest groups who are putting up barriers and delaying the design and construction of the Route 15 widening. We need safe roads for our families!
Write to:
Catoctin District Supervisor
Geary Higgins
[email protected]
Leesburg District Supervisor
Kristen Umstattd
[email protected]
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair
Phyllis J. Randall
[email protected]
Fix Route 15 Now!