Virginia

[J N Winkler]

BTW, it's interesting to note on Street View that the guy doesn't have a mailbox along Virginia Lane. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled next time I use that road. (Other houses have standard street-side mailboxes.)

Could he have been living at that address long enough to have a doorside mailbox or letter slot grandfathered in?

[Laura]

He could also use a P.O. Box.


iPhone

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: I-66 widening starts Monday night

Crews will begin widening a 3 mile stretch of Interstate 66 from Route 29 in Gainesville, Va. to Route 15 in Haymarket Monday night. The work isn't expected to impact either rush hours since most of the work will happen overnight.

Virginia Department of Transportation's Jennifer McCord says, "We're talking about mostly traffic impacts at night. We're talking about overnight closures."

After the work begins Monday, closures will occur Sunday through Thursday nights moving forward. The construction for this particular part of the project will last about two months.

McCord says one HOV lane and one regular lane will be added in both directions of the interstate.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Virginia doing away with E-ZPass fee

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed the bill passed by the General Assembly to eliminate the monthly fee the state charges for maintenance of E-ZPass accounts. Now, the state's transportation department has to figure out how to do that.

The deadline for eliminating the fee is Sept. 1.

Virginia imposed the fee of 50 cents a month in September 2012 on drivers who got new transponders. Drivers who got the E-ZPass Flex transponder for the free carpooler ride in the high occupancy toll lanes were charged $1 a month. But they could get the fee waived if they used the Flex exclusively for carpooling in the 495 Express Lanes.

The Virginia Department of Transportation said at the time that the annual operating cost of the E-ZPass customer service center is $10 million, just part of the cost of running the system of transponders and accounts. Many agencies that issue E-ZPass transponders and maintain the accounts charge maintenance fees. Maryland charges $1.50 a month, but waives it for accounts used to pay at least three tolls during the previous month in Maryland.

[cpzilliacus]

Another sign that VDOT's Safety Service Patrol (SSP) is privately operated nowdays.

The other day, I happened to notice that the VDOT SSP trucks no longer have Virginia "S" series state government tags, even though the paint and markings are on-spec current VDOT. 

The SSP vehicles now have private Virginia "TX" truck tags.

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: Road improvements underway at Fort Belvoir

A major road construction project is getting underway on U.S. Route 1 near Fort Belvoir.

The work on Richmond Highway between Telegraph Road (Route 611) and Mount Vernon Highway (Route 235) will occur in phases beginning near the middle of the 3.68 mile stretch. It will take about two years to complete.

[Mergingtraffic]

Off topic a bit.....since the Springfield interchange has been complete for awhile...would you say it has fixed traffic problems?  Or are there still backups or new areas of backups?

[1995hoo]

Off topic a bit.....since the Springfield interchange has been complete for awhile...would you say it has fixed traffic problems?  Or are there still backups or new areas of backups?

Massive improvement on the Beltway. There are other backups in the area, but none of them are due to Springfield. The "problem" with uncorking one problem is, of course, that you just make it easier for traffic to get to the next problem spot, which in the case of I-95 in Virginia has often been in Newington four miles south of the Beltway. I never drive that way during the afternoon rush hour, so I don't know whether the project to add a lane helped alleviate that. One issue in Newington is that a traffic light on the Fairfax County Parkway often backs up the traffic around a cloverleaf loop ramp into the deceleration lane on I-95, which means you then get the typical self-important DC-area drivers who think they shouldn't have to wait on line with everyone else and so stop in the thru lane to try to shove over at the gore point. Somewhere I have a dashcam video of that from the morning rush hour a few weeks ago.

But yes, the Springfield Interchange is no longer the problem. Some local media members complained about how all it did was shift the backup elsewhere, but to be fair, the Springfield project was never intended to uncork Newington. It was intended to untangle one of the worst interchanges on the East Coast and it did that very well. There are still a heck of a lot of BGSs to read and obey, just as there were before, and it is perhaps the single most unforgiving interchange I've ever seen in that if you miss your ramp, you have to go on to the next interchange and turn around to try again (no easy way to correct a mistake in Springfield). But the benefits of the project outweigh those issues in my view.

[Mapmikey]

Off topic a bit.....since the Springfield interchange has been complete for awhile...would you say it has fixed traffic problems?  Or are there still backups or new areas of backups?

I drive the Springfield Interchange and 95 south to Fredericksburg Mon-Thurs afternoon rush hours...

The following statement does not apply since the Express Lane construction got started...
The 4th lane project did clear up Newington SB.  Quite often I could get past the Lorton exit before the backup from the lane drop at VA 123 began.  The backup at 123 is exacerbated by the weave of folks entering 95 from Exit 161 and those wanting to exit at VA 123.  I always thought the exit to 123 from SB I-95 should've started before the Exit 161 NB on-ramp so that there would be no weave.  This same weave problem may also be created at the new south end of the express lanes at Exit 143. 

There is also a consistent backup on 95 SB at the VA 294 exit (Exit 158) as the off-ramp backs way up onto the mainline interstate...

Mapmikey

[froggie]

and it is perhaps the single most unforgiving interchange I've ever seen in that if you miss your ramp, you have to go on to the next interchange and turn around to try again (no easy way to correct a mistake in Springfield).

I'd argue that the Wilson Bridge is a worse offender for this.  For a semi-related example, I had one commute home (from Suitland to Huntington) where the local lanes were closed due to a jumper threat, so they forced everyone onto the express lanes.  But because the Eisenhower Connector interchange was closed for the reconstruction and Mill Rd hadn't opened yet, I had to go all the way down to Van Dorn St when my "normal" exit is Route 1.

[1995hoo]

and it is perhaps the single most unforgiving interchange I've ever seen in that if you miss your ramp, you have to go on to the next interchange and turn around to try again (no easy way to correct a mistake in Springfield).

I'd argue that the Wilson Bridge is a worse offender for this.  For a semi-related example, I had one commute home (from Suitland to Huntington) where the local lanes were closed due to a jumper threat, so they forced everyone onto the express lanes.  But because the Eisenhower Connector interchange was closed for the reconstruction and Mill Rd hadn't opened yet, I had to go all the way down to Van Dorn St when my "normal" exit is Route 1.

Fair argument, but the Wilson Bridge isn't really an "interchange," so I'll stand by my original comment that Springfield is the most unforgiving INTERCHANGE I've seen. If I were referring to roads in general I might have cited the Pennsylvania Turnpike due to the long gaps between interchanges. (I haven't driven the portion of Florida's Turnpike between Fort Pierce and Orlando and so it's not one "I've seen.")

Correcting yourself at any of the interchanges that were rebuilt as part of the Wilson Bridge project is no easy task even if they are all open, though, because none of them lets you "ride the ramps" (e.g., a "cloverleaf U-turn") and some of them require somewhat convoluted routing to turn around. The best example of the latter that comes readily to mind is if you mistakenly take the Outer Loop THRU lanes when you wanted I-295. You can exit to MD-210, but the process of getting back to the Inner Loop is quite involved and requires looping around past the new outlet mall, through a few lights, and then around a couple of loop-around ramps.


(Edited to correct a typo)

[cpzilliacus]

and it is perhaps the single most unforgiving interchange I've ever seen in that if you miss your ramp, you have to go on to the next interchange and turn around to try again (no easy way to correct a mistake in Springfield).

I'd argue that the Wilson Bridge is a worse offender for this.  For a semi-related example, I had one commute home (from Suitland to Huntington) where the local lanes were closed due to a jumper threat, so they forced everyone onto the express lanes.  But because the Eisenhower Connector interchange was closed for the reconstruction and Mill Rd hadn't opened yet, I had to go all the way down to Van Dorn St when my "normal" exit is Route 1.

At least the express lane span was available to you for that incident (and I concede that it's a pretty long way from U.S. 1 to Va. 613 (S. Van Dorn Street)).

I recall the one especially ugly (in terms of traffic impact) jumper incident on the old Woodrow Wilson Bridge in 1998 that resulted in the entire crossing being closed for an extended period in the P.M. peak commute period. It was (IMO) mishandled by the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC) from start to finish (this was in the days when MPDC insisted on responding to and handling any non-traffic incident on the D.C. part of the bridge), and finally ended after many hours when one of their officers shot the jumper with a "beanbag," which resulted in the jumper jumping into the river, where he was then fished-out by a police boat and taken away for medical treatment. 

[cpzilliacus]

and it is perhaps the single most unforgiving interchange I've ever seen in that if you miss your ramp, you have to go on to the next interchange and turn around to try again (no easy way to correct a mistake in Springfield).

I'd argue that the Wilson Bridge is a worse offender for this.  For a semi-related example, I had one commute home (from Suitland to Huntington) where the local lanes were closed due to a jumper threat, so they forced everyone onto the express lanes.  But because the Eisenhower Connector interchange was closed for the reconstruction and Mill Rd hadn't opened yet, I had to go all the way down to Van Dorn St when my "normal" exit is Route 1.

Fair argument, but the Wilson Bridge isn't really an "interchange," so I'll stand by my original comment that Springfield is the most unforgiving INTERCHANGE I've seen. If I were referring to roads in general I might have cited the Pennsylvania Turnpike due to the long gaps between interchanges. (I haven't driven the portion of Florida's Turnpike between Fort Pierce and Orlando and so it's not one "I've seen.")

I must agree with Adam on this one - no, the Wilson Bridge is not (and was not) an interchange, but the terribly substandard interchanges at Va. 243 in Fairfax County; U.S. 1 in Alexandria; I-295 in Prince George's County and Md. 210 were (to varying degrees) out-dated and obsolete 1960's interchanges (the one at U.S. 1 probably being the worst of the bunch).

Correcting yourself at any of the interchanges that were rebuilt as part of the Wilson Bridge project is no easy task even if they are all open, though, because none of them lets you "ride the ramps" (e.g., a "cloverleaf U-turn") and some of them require somewhat convoluted routing to turn around. The best example of the latter that comes readily to mind is if you mistakenly take the Outer Loop THRU lanes when you wanted I-295. You can exit to MD-210, but the process of getting back to the Inner Loop is quite involved and requires looping around past the new outlet mall, through a few lights, and then around a couple of loop-around ramps.

(Edited to correct a typo)

I agree with you that making a mistake in terms of a missed exit at the WWB interchanges can lead to a long detour. 

But - the rebuilt WWB and its approaches do accomplish something we could use a lot more of - they (hopefully) separate trips by trip length, with the shorter, local trips in the LOCAL lanes, and the longer trips in the THRU lanes.  That is something that planners yearn for in both freeway and transit system design. 

[1995hoo]

The Post reports Virginia's new governor signed the bill to end the E-ZPass fees but says the fees will be phased out by July 1 instead of the original Sept. 1 timetable:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2014/05/07/virginia-advances-timetable-for-ending-e-zpass-fee/

I might actually consider getting the E-ZPass Flex when the batteries in our current transponders expire. If there's no fee for doing so, there's little reason not to get that device. I don't have one now because our current devices are grandfathered in as fee-free and we so seldom have three people in the car that there would be no benefit to paying the $1.00 a month fee for the Flex. But if both it and the standard device carry no fee, there's not much reason not to get it when the time comes.

[Thing 342]

The Post reports Virginia's new governor signed the bill to end the E-ZPass fees but says the fees will be phased out by July 1 instead of the original Sept. 1 timetable:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2014/05/07/virginia-advances-timetable-for-ending-e-zpass-fee/

I might actually consider getting the E-ZPass Flex when the batteries in our current transponders expire. If there's no fee for doing so, there's little reason not to get that device. I don't have one now because our current devices are grandfathered in as fee-free and we so seldom have three people in the car that there would be no benefit to paying the $1.00 a month fee for the Flex. But if both it and the standard device carry no fee, there's not much reason not to get it when the time comes.

I have a grandfathered device as well, but I don't plan on getting the Flex simply because I don't use the HOT lanes that often. Unless they decide to use them in Hampton Roads, then I may reconsider.

[1995hoo]

I have a grandfathered device as well, but I don't plan on getting the Flex simply because I don't use the HOT lanes that often. Unless they decide to use them in Hampton Roads, then I may reconsider.

I use them frequently but never with three people. It's more a case of there simply being no reason not to get it if you live in this area. If I lived in Richmond or Tidewater I'd never even consider getting it unless I made frequent trips up I-95 (this because the I-95 HO/T lanes are to open next year).

[roadman65]

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.274729,-76.689265,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1svCmmhI8PgmUaKXHkCcf-3w!2e0
I am guessing that not only is this sign assembly at the intersection of Page Street and Second Street in Williamsburg placed by the City of Williamsburg instead of VDOT, but that Williamsburg maintains all of its city streets like most VA cities as well even if it carries state and US designations?

[Mapmikey]

All independent cities in Virginia maintain their own roads (including signage styles)  except for the interstates.  VDOT gives a certain amount of $ per mile for primary designations and a smaller amount of $ per mile for the rest...

Mapmikey

[hbelkins]

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/14168943373_0eaae10f32_c.jpg
I am guessing that not only is this sign assembly at the intersection of Page Street and Second Street in Williamsburg placed by the City of Williamsburg instead of VDOT, but that Williamsburg maintains all of its city streets like most VA cities as well even if it carries state and US designations?

That link loaded a construction scene (of a bridge and retaining wall) and not of a sign assembly.

[roadman65]

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/14168943373_0eaae10f32_c.jpg
I am guessing that not only is this sign assembly at the intersection of Page Street and Second Street in Williamsburg placed by the City of Williamsburg instead of VDOT, but that Williamsburg maintains all of its city streets like most VA cities as well even if it carries state and US designations?

That link loaded a construction scene (of a bridge and retaining wall) and not of a sign assembly.

Fixed it.

[cpzilliacus]

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/14168943373_0eaae10f32_c.jpg
I am guessing that not only is this sign assembly at the intersection of Page Street and Second Street in Williamsburg placed by the City of Williamsburg instead of VDOT, but that Williamsburg maintains all of its city streets like most VA cities as well even if it carries state and US designations?

That link loaded a construction scene (of a bridge and retaining wall) and not of a sign assembly.

Fixed it.

Still getting the construction area here.

[froggie]

Go back to his original post...quoted links don't get fixed automatically.

[roadman65]

I do not know how that particular link got in there in the first place as I thought I highlighted the original GSV link.  I think I  must of hit CTRL V and not CTRL C and it kept the original copy/paste from when I was uploading my flickr photo previously.

Yes, like froggie says, go to the original.  Quotes do not get fixed, unless the moderator does it.

[D-Dey65]

Found this image from I-81:
http://ruinedchildhood.com/post/85665106263/tastefullyoffensive-staycheesy
http://tumblr.tastefullyoffensive.com/post/83018948912/staycheesy#.U3LWXRXD-M8




Should I post the pic?

[DBrim]

I'm trying to clean up my VA county map, potentially in preparation for a county-clinching trip. There's a few independent cities which I'm not sure if I have or not. I've done 81 through the entire state (southbound). The ones I'm unsure of are Radford, Staunton, and Winchester. Google maps has 81 right on the border in all of these cases, usually with southbound actually in the county and northbound not. Does anybody have a definitive answer?