Virginia Department of Transportation

VDOT statewide access management standards

To: VDOT
Date: 29 October 2007

Dear VDOT:

Reforms are desperately needed to promote and preserve the safety, capacity, and comfortable usability of our highways. If nothing is done, traffic will choke our roads and eventually make them useless for their intended purpose of moving people and goods to their destinations. (In Northern Virginia, this is already true at certain hours.)

To promote efficient transportation, Virginia needs high, strong, and rigorous standards for access management. I am glad to see the promulgation of new regulations. Rather than making rules strict and absolute, sufficient flexibility must be available to allow innovation in promoting local circulation as well as through traffic.

The goals of these regulations should include

• maximizing safety of all modes of transportation, including cars, trucks, bicycles, tricycles, pedestrians, wheelchairs, skates, scooters, and mass transit;
  
  
• minimizing the need for low-capacity vehicular transportation;
  
  
• minimizing traffic conflict;
  
  
• minimizing pollution, including exhaust emissions and runoff;
  
  
• minimizing the need for pavement and clearing;
  
  
• providing easy access to and from the communities along each highway;
  
  
• preserving and promoting the integrity, buildings, circulation, farmland, tax base, and amenities of existing communities;
  
  
• protecting habitats and travel routes of wildlife;
  
  
• minimizing driver confusion, which can lead to unsafe stops and lane changes;
  
  
• minimizing driver tedium, which can lead to loss of vehicle control;
  
  
• minimizing stacking on high-speed roads and other inappropriate locations;
  
  
• minimizing travel time, to the extent feasible;
  
  
• minimizing long-term public construction cost;
  
  
• minimizing the impact of construction and weather;
  
  
• maximizing scenic assets; and
  
  
• maximizing efficiency.
  
  

At the same time, I hope the following points will be recognized:

• There are significant differences between plains and mountains, between urban and rural communities, between larger cities and smaller cities, and between passenger and commercial traffic;
  
  
• Although there is considerable long distance traffic moving through Virginia, even on through highways, most traffic is local traffic, going less than 50 miles. Rather than being a continuous stream, the through traffic tends to take breaks for refueling, sleep, meals, and restroom visits. Therefore, accommodating flow of traffic through localities will address only part of the need.
  
  

These are some of the reforms needed to make roads operate safely, efficiently, and economically:

• Access to new development should be designed in a way that promotes safe traffic flow.
  
  
• New development should provide locations for bus stops that do not interfere with traffic lanes.
  
  
• New development should be encouraged, even required, to cluster near points that can be served by mass transit and at which grade-separated highway crossings are economical.
  
  
• Builders should pay their share of the cost of the construction required to provide safe access to their projects.
  
  
• Connections should be mandated between adjacent subdivisions and commercial sites, as well as tap streets to undeveloped land -- regardless of whether the builders, landowners, and local governments favor them. I suggest that this standard be imposed retroactively, providing access lanes between existing adjacent parking lots.
  
  
• Signs, fences, and buildings should be placed so that they do not compromise sight distance at curves and intersections. On surface highways, readable street name and route signs should be provided a half block before intersections so that drivers need not stop and squint while looking for turnoffs. (In California, they are placed over major boulevards.)
  
  
• Off-road lights should be shielded so that they do not distract drivers or interfere with night vision. (The blinking lights of an airport have an hypnotic effect on drivers on the westbound Bedford bypass.)
  
  

One need only drive VA-40 through Rocky Mount to understand some of the mistakes that have been made in recent years. One 1.5-mile stretch has nine stoplights. They impede flow, diminish the capacity of the road, and consume valuable time of thousands of through travelers every day -- weeks out of the life of a commuter over a 30-year career. (The doglegs and right-angle turns to the west are much older.)

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to make the standards so rigid that they turn highways into barriers that divide and isolate communities. Through traffic and local traffic are not distinct entities; they are portions of a spectrum that must be served in its entirety. North Carolina's US-220 and NC-14 provide good examples of how roads can be upgraded without becoming less useful. Connecticut has managed to provide a variety of highways that serve different needs, meet different standards, and have different looks: Connecticut Turnpike, Merritt Parkway, Wilbur Cross Parkway, Wilbur Cross Highway, etc. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia also provide some lessons, both positive and negative. Virginia need not choose one cookie-cutter to plant identical roads everywhere in the state.

I hope reasonable ideas can be developed to address situations like these:

• Industrial redevelpment is planned near Reserve Avenue in Roanoke, within sight of the Roy L. Webber Expressway (US-220). Ramps to the highway would help absorb much of the increased commuter traffic. Yet I have been told by an engineer under contract to VDOT that adding or expanding interchanges along the proposed route of I-73 is nearly impossible, because USDOT standards have been raised. Yet highways in cities like Richmond function with older or compromised standards. When traffic patterns change, the roads should be adapted to accommodate those changes. Obsolete function should not be locked in.
  
  
• I do not know how Lynchburg wound up with signalized intersections between its four disconnected limited-access highways. Apparently, some people's ambition to pave ran away from practical considerations.
  
  
• Recently, a series of median cuts were eliminated along US-220 north of Boones Mill. While acceptable to motorists, this seems a nuisance to pedestrians, who face a ditch filled with flowers blocking their way to the other side of the road. Forcing people them to walk a longer distance along narrow shoulders does not make them or motorists safer.
  
  

Please keep me informed of the development of the new regulations.

Yours truly,

(name omitted)