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“I’m not so worried about the future. I want to take care of existing traffic problems,” maintained Hampton District Supervisor Mike Massie as the Rappahannock Planning Commission voted a resolution last Wednesday endorsing the Virginia Department of Transportation’s plans for upgrading Rt. 211 to a dual-lane divided highway between Washington and Sperryville, the construction to begin next summer.
Even the new-found opponents of the proposed widening of Rt. 211 have conceded that hills, curves, short sight distances, narrow shoulders, near-blind access from driveways and side roads, and the proximity of two public schools, one private school, and the busy Rappahannnock Farmers Co-op create traffic hazards on the four-mile stretch.
But rather than dual-laning, which the highway department estimates will cost at least $13 million, the opponents have suggested more modest improvements, including constructing turning lanes, flattening hills, and widening shoulders.
“A band-aid approach” was Commissioner John Clark’s reaction to those suggestions.
If the highway department’s engineers would advise that scaled down improvements could make the two-lane road as safe as a divided four-lane and if they would advise that traffic counts are expected to drop, then “I would vote against the dual-laning,” said Mr. Massie, the Board of Supervisors’ representative on the Planning Commission, noting that the number of cars and trucks on the four-mile stretch has increased 45.5 percent since 1974.
But opponents of the highway project did win one convert last week. Commissioner Werner Krebser opposed the resolution, saying it’s “utter nonsense” to think the interior dual-laning of four miles won’t spur growth. “If you build highways, you’re going to get development,” maintained the Wakefield District representative. “I could see pushing for it” if the dual-laned stretch “led somewhere,” Dr. Krebser said, adding, however, that the improvements will' only move the bottleneck up four miles to the village of Sperryville where the four-lane is to narrow again to a twolane.
As to the steadily increasing traffic on the stretch, said to be the most heavily traveled portion of .road in RapgH&Al&Mtigk., he Ihsist&cT! (hat
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