The Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s policy committee voted 9-1 on Monday night in favor of “Option C” for a new road and bridge over the Rappahannock River.
The road would run from Celebrate Virginia Parkway in Stafford County, cross the river west of the quarry and connect with Gordon Shelton Boulevard in Fredericksburg from the west.
FAMPO, a regional transportation planning body, has been studying the proposed construction of a river crossing west of Interstate 95 for more than a year.
A consulting firm FAMPO hired focused on five potential river crossing paths over the past few months, and a citizens committee presented a sixth option in April.
In recent weeks, Stafford’s Board of Supervisors and Fredericksburg’s City Council picked their preferred route, which, for both localities, was Option C.
Each of the original alternatives would have spanned from a point near Route 17 in Stafford to one in Fredericksburg and was judged on several factors, including its impact on environmental and cultural resources, its effect on the existing transportation network, and public input.
It’s unclear how much such a project would cost and how it would be funded. The price would probably be more than $200 million.
Monday’s vote reflects only a basic framework of where the road would go, too. It will allow FAMPO consultant Michael Baker International to complete its study, and then the project will be the focus of a separate study according to the National Environmental Policy Act.
That effort, led by the Virginia Department of Transportation, would evaluate a crossing’s impacts on environmental, historic and social resources, and it would get into more detail about the new road’s precise location.
“You’re not locking yourself in tonight to anything,” FAMPO Administrator Ian Ollis on Monday told the policy committee, which includes elected officials from Fredericksburg, Stafford and Spotsylvania County.
Spotsylvania’s Board of Supervisors also discussed a preferred route for the river crossing last week, but that governing body didn’t pick a specific path. Supervisors, instead, said the county “seeks an option that provides an opportunity to add a route into Spotsylvania that adds greater benefits to the entire region.”
Because they didn’t pick a pre-examined route, policy committee Chairwoman and Spotsylvania Supervisor Lori Hayes said she felt like she had to vote against Option C. She cast the sole dissenting vote on Monday.
Much of the discussion before the vote also concerned whether FAMPO should address other, related traffic problems, e.g., gridlock on Garrisonville Road in North Stafford.
The policy committee didn’t take a vote on that matter. But members seemed to find consensus on the notion that other potential projects are necessary, and Ollis said another consultant’s study would be necessary to address that issue.
Policy committee member Chris Yakabouski, a Spotsylvania supervisor, brought up concerns about traffic on Fall Hill Avenue in Fredericksburg and River Road in the county. He said that the river crossing proposal “can’t be the end.”
“We need to move forward with other projects that will help the region move,” he said.
Or, as policy committee member and Stafford Supervisor Crystal Vanuch, said: “You know, this is one piece of the puzzle, right?”
One possibility for another traffic fix could come from the work of FAMPO’s Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee.
When members of that group presented their ideas about a river crossing to the policy committee in April, they proposed adding an additional bridge to the project and having a road stretch south to Route 3 in Spotsylvania.
