Active Prince William

Advancing active mobility in greater Prince William, Virginia

Category: Active Prince William (Page 2 of 8)

Our Statement at the CTB’s 2025 NoVA District Pre-Allocation Hearing

May 12, 2025 /

On May 8, 2025, Active Prince William’s co-chair, Allen Muchnick, delivered the following statement at the Commonwealth Transportation Board’s spring 2025 Six-Year Improvement Program public hearing for VDOT’s Northern Virginia District:

Commonwealth Transportation Board’s Pre-Allocation Public Hearing for the Northern Virginia District, May 8, 2025, Statement of Allen Muchnick, Co-Chair, Active Prince William

Good evening.  I’m Allen Muchnick, co-chair of Active Prince William.  We advocate for improved active mobility and public transportation throughout greater Prince William, for healthy, livable, equitable, and sustainable communities.

Last December, VDOT’s NoVA District office released an analysis of the roughly 5,000 miles of locally planned but currently unfunded active transportation facilities throughout the District.  That non-exhaustive analysis estimated the present-dollar (2022) cost to create those already planned active mobility facilities to total roughly 14 billion dollars.

At the present rate at which standalone active mobility projects are funded, it would take hundreds of years to complete those already planned active mobility facilities.  The NoVA region needs a study to figure out how to more effectively fund active mobility infrastructure.

Since 2010, VDOT’s roadway reconfiguration program has wisely reallocated excess travel lane space in Fairfax County, to cost-effectively retrofit bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements on many dozens of roadways during scheduled resurfacing, while also reducing speeding.  However, Prince William and Loudoun Counties have largely been excluded from this program, because their local transportation planners were not notified early enough of the candidate road resurfacing projects.  We urge VDOT’s maintenance division to extend this earlier notification of repaving candidates to all Virginia counties.

The alignment of US Bicycle Route 1 through Prince William County is a prime example where retrofitted bike lanes or paved shoulders are desperately needed.  Although AASHTO and VDOT established this route more than 40 years ago and a VDOT consultant re-evaluated the route’s alignment through NoVA more than a decade ago, the bicycling conditions on several Prince William route segments just get worse.  The County’s online Bicycle Skill Level Map labels Old Bridge Road, part of Minnieville Rd, Aden Rd, and Fleetwood Dr—all lacking bicycle facilities and posted at 45-MPH–as “Roads to Avoid” and tags Hoadly Rd and Tanyard Hill Rd as “Low Comfort”.  VDOT’s 2015 Bicycle Level of Service Map for the NoVA District rated those segments similarly.  It’s long past time for VDOT and the County to fix those embarrassing and potentially deadly deficiencies.

Despite the hundreds of miles of VDOT-owned shared-use paths and sidewalks throughout the NoVA District, VDOT still performs little maintenance and repair of such assets, except in response to reported complaints.  After construction, the pavement is left to deteriorate for decades and is fixed only after repeated complaints.  VDOT still has no annual budget or established policies and procedures to adequately and proactively assess and maintain its active mobility assets.  As a first step, the Virginia Transportation Research Council might be asked to study how to best accomplish this perpetual maintenance.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

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Our Recommendations for PWC’s Traffic Safety Action Plan

May 6, 2025 /

 

On May 5, 2025,  Active Prince William submitted the following recommended programmatic actions for Prince William County’s Comprehensive Traffic Safety Action Plan that is now under development.  We look forward to seeing our recommendations incorporated in the adopted plan and implemented by PWCDOT and VDOT in the years to come.  View our official comment letter.

Active Prince William’s Recommended Programmatic Actions for Prince William County’s Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan

1) Reduce the design speed for all commercial arterial roadways (e.g., Richmond Highway, Sudley Road, Centreville Road, Dale Boulevard) to 35 MPH or less.  Speed kills.  If VDOT is willing to reduce the posted speed limit on parts of US-1 to 35 MPH in Fairfax County and to 25 MPH in Arlington County (with the local governing body’s concurrence), it will do the same in Prince William County.

2) Avoid and eliminate right-turn-only lanes on commercial arterial roadways, to shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians, lower vehicle speeds and improve yielding behavior at intersections, and reduce traffic crashes.

3) Eliminate overly wide (e.g., all 12-ft) travel lanes and excess roadway capacity through roadway reconfigurations (e.g., lane diets and road diets).   Wide and unwarranted travel lanes promote speeding and consume valuable public street space that could be reallocated to better accommodate non-vehicular travel modes and/or turning or parked vehicles.

 4) Establish a robust roadway reconfiguration program–in conjunction with scheduled VDOT roadway resurfacing projects–to retrofit bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements, at little or no cost to Prince William County, through lane diets and road diets.   As Fairfax County DOT has accomplished for well over a decade, roadway reconfigurations during scheduled VDOT resurfacing projects can substantially and cost effectively expand a locality’s bikeway network and improve pedestrian comfort and safety.

5) Improve intersection safety for pedestrians, where warranted, by installing pedestrian crossing signals with Leading Pedestrian Intervals, high-visibility (and raised) crosswalks, and improved street lighting.  Reduce pedestrian crossing distances with lane reductions, bike lanes, pedestrian refuges, and/or curb extensions (aka bulb outs), and slow turning vehicles by reducing curb- return radii.

6) Add signalized pedestrian crossings of commercial arterials where the existing signalized crossings are too widely spaced.

7) Improve sidewalk safety and comfort for pedestrians and reduce mid-block traffic crashes by consolidating commercial driveway entrances and by installing raised medians during road reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.  Meanwhile, all existing driveway aprons on sidewalks should receive high-visibility crosswalk markings until such driveway aprons are eventually removed.

8) Grade separate all trail crossings of multilane roadways, especially as part of interchange construction projects.  Install raised crosswalks at at-grade sidewalk and trail crossings to enhance the visibility and reinforce the right-of-way of crosswalk users and to slow approaching traffic.

9) Ensure that all roadway crossings of streams are planned, designed, and effectively inventoried by VDOT to accommodate existing and future stream valley trails beneath the roadway or within the steam culvert.

10) Avoid and eliminate all at-grade sidewalk and trail crossings of multilane turn lanes or highway ramps, to preclude dual-threat or multi-threat crossing situations, where the drivers in every lane must stop for (or yield to) vulnerable road users and already-stopped vehicles may block the view of crossing pedestrians.

11) Install signs, pavement markings, and flashing beacons, as appropriate, to alert turning drivers to crossing vulnerable road users at free-flow right-turn lanes (aka slip lanes).

12) Ensure that all segments of US Bicycle Route 1 within Prince William County attain an acceptable Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS) of C or better, through roadway reconfigurations, route realignments, paved shoulder retrofits, and/or shared-use path construction or reconstruction, following up on this circa 2013 route evaluation.  The deficient route segments currently include Fleetwood Dr, Aden Rd, Joplin Rd, Bristow Rd, Hoadly Rd, Minnieville Rd, Old Bridge Rd, and Tanyard Hill Rd.

13) Establish Prince William County procedures for snow and ice removal from sidewalks and shared-use paths, especially along bus routes.  VDOT, by established policy, does not remove snow or ice from its sidewalks or shared-use paths, but after the roads have been cleared, sidewalks, paths, and bus stops may be blocked for many days and even weeks by mounds of plowed snow and ice, forcing pedestrians and bus riders to walk in the roadway.  Do Prince William County and its four towns have and enforce snow-removal ordinances?  Could volunteers be enlisted to adopt a road segment for snow clearing?  Are both the County and PWCS equipped and mandated to remove snow and ice on sidewalks and paths that front PWC- or PWCS-owned parcels?

14) Establish and enforce Prince William County procedures to ensure the maintenance of traffic (MOT) for people using sidewalks or shared-use paths during nearby construction projects.

15) Establish programs to identify, inspect, prioritize, and annually fund the construction, repair, replacement, and upgrade of sidewalks and shared-use paths, by the County and by VDOT.

16) Establish a program to identify, prioritize, fund, build, and maintain neighborhood cut-through paths that connect low-traffic subdivision streets.

17) Develop and promote a bicycle comfort level (level of traffic stress) map for Prince William County, building upon a previous effort.

18) Establish a PWC quick-build program to test road reconfiguration concepts in a cost-effective and timely manner.

19) Implement a strategic and data-driven program of automated traffic law enforcement to the fullest extent allowed by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

20) Continuously track and report annually on traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities to identify their leading causes and locations and to monitor progress.

21) Develop a strategic and comprehensive active transportation master plan for Prince William County, guided by an expert team of outside consultants.

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Our Comments on PWC’s Proposed Route 1 Widening

January 21, 2025 /
A bus priority lane on University Boulevard in Montgomery County, MD
On January 16, 2025, Active Prince William sent the following comments to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) in response to a new funding request by County staff to initiate the widening of a new segment of U.S. Route 1 (between Cardinal Dr and Dumfries Rd), to create a high-speed arterial roadway with six through travel lanes for personal motor vehicles.

PWC BOCS,

After reviewing Agenda Item 8A on the 1/21/25 PWC BOCS Agenda, we are disappointed there was no public announcement and input opportunity for these priorities/plans before the agenda’s release.

While we  acknowledge that the Route 123/Old Bridge Rd flyover, Sudley Manor Dr/Route 234 Interchange, and Clover Hill Rd/Route 234 Intersection are active projects, we are disappointed that the Route 1 widening project is part of this agenda item.

This Route 1 corridor segment, which includes the highest ridership Omniride local route (53 | Dumfries Connector), provides an opportunity to scope a major transit project by adding bus lanes or business access and transit (BAT) lanes.

Route 1 should be designed as a walkable and livable mixed-use regional activity center, not as a mini I-95. The county should reject the long-discredited mindset that widening commercial roadways is a viable long-term strategy that improves resident quality of life.

Such widening projects induce an even-higher vehicle mode share, burden families with increased vehicle ownership costs, render active mobility unsafe and miserable, and generate negative environmental externalities, such as noise, air, and water pollution.  This project would depress transit ridership in favor of increased vehicle speeds, reduced safety, and more traffic congestion for future generations. These outcomes are in direct conflict with many proposed strategic plan goal elements.

While PWC transportation staff is proposing widening Route 1 this week, Arlington County and VDOT are recommending removing interchanges from their section of Route 1 and lowering the speed limit to 25 MPH, to reconnect the community as part of major economic development initiative, while Fairfax County and VDOT are advancing a major Bus Rapid Transit initiative along Route 1.

Prince William County is no longer a rural/exurban county with 200,000 people like Stafford County; it’s an increasingly urban county of almost 500,000 people that must significantly diversify its transportation mode share to improve quality of life for its residents.

We need to prioritize affordable housing AND affordable transportation.

We recommend the PWC BOCS:

  • Gather resident input on more sustainable alternatives for this Route 1 segment
  • Initiate a Citizen Transportation Advisory Commission, to vet transportation project priorities in a public forum before they reach the BOCS agenda
  • Prioritize projects that reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled

Thank you for considering this feedback.

Mark Scheufler & Allen Muchnick, Co-Chairs
Active Prince William
Advancing active mobility for a more livable, equitable, & sustainable greater Prince William, Virginia
Twitter: @Active_PW https://twitter.com/Active_PW

Active Mobility & The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority

January 11, 2025 /

Active Prince William Co-Chair Allen Muchnick delivered the statement below at the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s annual public hearing on January 9, 2025.

Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s Annual Public Hearing, January 9, 2025, Statement by Allen Muchnick, City of Manassas Resident

Good evening.  I’m Allen Muchnick, a City of Manassas resident.

NVTA proclaims multimodality and “core values” of equity, safety, and sustainability, but it takes effective policies and performance measures to rise above empty buzzwords and greenwashing.

For instance, NVTA still lacks any Complete Streets policy, and it doesn’t track and report the greenhouse gas emissions generated by its funded projects.  When counting the active mobility lane miles funded by NVTA (see the presentation under Agenda Item #5), it’s greenwashing to combine the 30% and 70% projects or to count the replacement active mobility facilities in road-widening projects.

Do we advance equity, safety, and sustainability by building–and perpetuating–wide and fast commercial roadways that injure or kill hundreds of pedestrians annually, increase vehicle miles traveled, and promote more auto-dependent sprawl?

Is it equitable, sustainable, or cost-effective to spend sales tax and other non-motoring revenue to expand roads in the outer NoVA counties so more people who work in NoVA or DC can commute in single-occupant vehicles from localities beyond NoVA?

VDOT’s NoVA District office has recently estimated that it would cost roughly $14 Billion (in current, year-2022 dollars) to build the active mobility facilities already described in adopted NoVA-locality plans and not part of a larger transportation project now under development.

Yet, according to NVTA’s NoVA Gateway project-tracking website, during 16 fiscal years, NVTA has so far awarded only about 3.5% ($131.4 million) out of $3.8 Billion in regional funds to 11 standalone active mobility projects (and of that amount $39.1 million has been set aside for a single project, the CC2DCA connector).  Of the 105 projects that have so far actually received NVTA regional money, less than 2.3% ($54.4 million) of the $2.4 billion allocated has flowed to a mere 7 standalone active mobility projects.

Thus, at NVTA’s historic rate of allocating its regional funds for standalone active mobility projects, it would take roughly 1700 years (at $8.2 million/year) to fully fund NoVA’s already planned active mobility facilities.

NVTA could receive more equitable, safe, and sustainable projects to evaluate for funding if the Authority were to require each locality or agency to hold an advertised public hearing before the relevant governing body endorses any project for NVTA-related funding, including from the federal CMAQ and RSTP programs.

Presently, in localities without a transportation advisory commission, such project funding submissions are often developed behind closed doors and simply placed on the governing body’s consent agenda.  Requiring advertised public hearings well before governing body endorsement could alter the mix of submitted projects—such as more standalone active mobility projects—as well as modify or expand the scope of the multimodal project submissions in light of the early public input.

Finally, NVTA should increase transparency and public trust by posting all proceedings of its Regional Jurisdiction and Agency Coordinating Committee on its website.

Thank you for this public comment opportunity.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Send Another Email

December 23, 2024 /

 

On December 17, 2024, Active Prince William sent the email below to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to–yet again–protest the Board’s long-standing practice of placing their approval of staff applications for transportation project funding on the BOCS Consent Agenda, in the absence of any prior public involvement process.

Dear Chair Jefferson and County Supervisors:

Active Prince William asks–once again–that the Board of County Supervisors require the Prince William County Department of Transportation to present the Department’s proposed mobility project funding submissions for public input at an advertised public hearing before they are submitted for the Board’s approval on a consent agenda.

Your December 17, 2024 BOCS Consent Agenda includes Item 4-F, listing two mobility projects for grant applications for Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) and Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP) funds in FY 2031.  The public was unaware of which specific projects would be identified until the BOCS agenda was posted.

This consent agenda action—in the absence of any prior public input opportunities—perpetuates the same opaque decision process of previous Boards. The decision will be ratified by the BOCS before Public Comment Time and with no public announcements or public input opportunities in advance regarding which projects were considered for funding.  All decisions were made by county staff behind closed doors, and endorsed by the BOCS before Public Comment Time.

The two projects in Item 4-F may well be the best ones to advance at this time–but maybe not.  Moreover, the public was never given any opportunity to ensure that the proposed scope and budget of each project are adequate to suitably accommodate all travelers.  The BOCS will never know if there were other perspectives, because the current process precludes any opportunity to gather points of view other than from county staff.

Active Prince William has repeatedly suggested an alternative approach; namely, require the County’s Department of Transportation to hold an annual or semi-annual public hearing to present its proposed upcoming mobility project funding requests for public input at least 30 to 60 days before consideration by the BOCS.  We raised this issue in our September 2023 survey of BOCS candidates and again at the May 14, 2024 BOCS meeting.

We call on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to issue a directive to the Prince William County Executive with the following components:

  1. Require the Prince William County Department of Transportation (PWC DOT) to present–for public comment at an advertised public hearing–any proposed first-time request for regional, state, or federal funding for a new transportation or trail capital project or planning activity, in advance of bringing that funding request to the Board of County Supervisors for its endorsement.
  2. Cite all applicable non-local funding programs, including the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s (NVTA) 70% and 30% funds; federal RSTP or CMAQ allocations which are endorsed by the NVTA; the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission’s (NVTC) I-66 and I-95/I-395 Commuter Choice programs; National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) technical assistance grants (e.g., Transportation-Land Use Connections, Transit within Reach, Regional Roadway Safety Program); Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside requests submitted to either the TPB or VDOT; VDOT’s SMART SCALE, Revenue Sharing, and HSIP programs; the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Recreational Trails Program; USDOT discretionary grant programs (e.g., RAISE, SS4A); Congressional earmark requests; and the Federal Transit Administration’s Enhanced Mobility Program.
  3. Allow the PWC DOT to conduct these public hearings at any appropriate venue that includes online viewing and public comment submission components, including at scheduled Planning Commission meetings.
  4. Specify that the public hearing must be held at least 30 to 60 days before the endorsement request is scheduled to be placed on the BOCS agenda.
  5. Require the PWC DOT to compile a written summary of–and response to–the public comments received and include that summary with the other BOCS meeting materials when they present their funding request for BOCS approval.

We believe that the process outlined above would provide valuable community input–near the very beginning of the project development process–for both the PWC Department of Transportation and the Board of County Supervisors.

Thank you for considering our proposal,

Mark Scheufler & Allen Muchnick, Co-Chairs Active Prince William
Advancing active mobility for a more livable, equitable, & sustainable greater Prince William, Virginia
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