Portion of Minnieville Road now four lanes

For years Minnieville Road in Dale City was a two-lane thoroughfare. Now county transportation officials are putting the finishing touches on the latest portion of the road that has been widened to four lanes.

After widening the road between Old Bridge and Caton Hill roads in Lake Ridge, a wider 1.3 mile stretch of Minnieville Road, between Cardinal Drive and Spriggs Road, was scheduled to be finished Sunday.

Voters passed a road bond in 2002 that OK’d funding the widening.

The $7 million project includes a new signal light, new turn lanes at every major intersection and more than 40,000 tons of pavement and asphalt.

Tom Blaser, head of the Prince William County Department of Transportation, said the road opens up new commuting options for Prince William County travelers.

“It starts to give you an east-west grid of roads. We’ve got the parkway, Route 234, Old Bridge Road that run north and south and then we’ve now got the connections like Hoadly Road and Minnieville Road,” said Blaser.

Though he described the project as a “typical suburban road widening,” he added that the additional lanes posed some challenges.

Rain and cold weather stalled the project earlier this spring. That prompted residents to call Blaser’s department to complain about not seeing construction crews at the site.

“Weather can have different effects on the project at different phases. If it rains and we have already poured the asphalt, we can move on. But if it rains on dirt, it can take days for it to dry and for us to move on again,” said Kattab Shammut, Prince William transportation project manager.

Relocating utilities such as water, sewer and power, as well as cable and telephone lines, also proved more difficult than anticipated. Blaser said the county does not get into the habit of “micromanaging” road projects but allows the contractor to decide when and in what conditions the crews should work.

The contractor is given an expected completion date, which they are expected to follow, added Blaser.

Another hurdle presented itself before construction began. Residents of Cardinal Station became concerned when a plan surfaced to close the intersection of Statler Drive and Minnieville Road.

The debate centered on whether or not the end of Statler Drive, at Minnieville Road, should be turned into a cul-de-sac, blocking access to Minnieville Road.

Making the intersection into a right turn in and right turn out-only, or to simply leaving it as is, were other options that were discussed.

Multiple public hearings were held and a vote was taken. In the end the full intersection plan won, giving residents full access to both roads. Shammut said leaving the intersection as is was part of the original design when the Virginia Department of Transportation laid out plans for the improved road.

About 60 properties had to be purchased, all or in part, before the road could be widened. Blaser said his department did not have to litigate a single property, something that he is very satisfied with.
“We realize that these are people who make up our community and we want to bend over backward to help them,” said Blaser.

The road also has a new concrete median that runs nearly the entire length of the wider road, and a new signal light was erected at General Washington Drive.

Another signal light may be built at the intersection of Stratford Drive and Minniville Road after a traffic study is completed later this fall. The study will examine the number of cars that use the road and the number of cars that attempt to turn into the housing sub-division.

Blaser said the study has been delayed until the start of school, when normal traffic patterns on the road resume.

Now that all of the asphalt has been laid and the white lines have been marked, Blaser said he hopes residents will take well to the improved road.

“After it opens I hope drivers can travel easier, safer and say that it looks good,” said Blaser.

Prince William County’s transportation department has existed for just two years, and has become widely envied among other jurisdictions in the state, said Blaser. The department uses bond money, approved by voters, to fund their projects.

The agency is hoping to acquire more federal funds for future road projects, including widening the remaining portion of Minnieville Road, from Spriggs Road to Va. 234.

Before the county’s transportation department was created, Blaser said, the department of public works managed local road projects. The first road bond approved by county voters was in 1988.

Voters then approved the first section of Prince William Parkway, near Potomac Mills, acquiring the land which is now the parkway from Hoadly Road to Liberia Avenue in Manassas, and for improvements to Sudley Road.

The department is now managing the U.S. 1 widening project at Triangle, near the Marine Corps Museum.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.