It's complicated

 

Government, especially at the local level, deals with the nuts and bolts of daily life, especially traffic.  

Goochland supervisors are painfully aware of the matter and held a transportation/capital improvement plan workshop on March 14 that covered road related topics.

Courthouse Village Roundabout

According to Transportation Manager Austin Goyne, the roundabout under construction at the intersection of Fairground and Sandy Hook Roads is on schedule.  A detour for phase III of the project will tentatively be put in place between April 24 and July 19. Sandy Hook Road will remain open with flagging operations during this time. Fairground Road will be closed at the entrance to Courthouse Commons Shopping Center. The passenger car detour route will use Dickinson Road, trucks, Maidens Road. Completion is expected sometime in October 2023.

Goyne said that a safety study of the Hermitage/Manakin Road interchange closest to Rt. 6, is expected to get underway soon. This was brought to the supervisors’ attention at their March 7 meeting.

 

The VDOT dance

In Goochland, transportation means roads. For the record, Goochland does not have a highway department that can be called out to add a lane, install a traffic signal, plow snow, or fill potholes.

The county relies on VDOT for all road construction, improvements, and most funding. Each year, the supervisors prioritize road projects for inclusion in a secondary six-year plan, for the funds that VDOT allots to Goochland. Often by the time a project gets to the head of the line, its actual cost exceeds the first estimate.

As Board Chair Neil Spoonhower, District 2, put it, road funding in Goochland is a combination of art and science. This workshop delved into the convoluted process the county must navigate to obtain transportation dollars, even for badly needed road improvements.

Since Goyne joined staff last year, said Spoonhower, more frequent meetings to discuss road projects in detail and explore potential funding mechanisms are possible. Going forward, supervisors who sit on regional transportation boards will work closely with staff on an informal basis to share pertinent information when it is available rather than wait for quarterly meetings.

Goyne explained that county road funding priorities must be flexible to deal with the changing priorities of the county. For instance, the four-lane diverging diamond (DDI) on Ashland Road moved to the top of the list following the approval of “Project Rocky” last summer. Additional expected growth in the Ashland Road industrial corridor supports that change.

VDOT uses a competitive process to award transportation funding through various programs. Goochland competes with other jurisdictions in the Richmond region for these dollars. (Think mother robin with a worm in her mouth and lots of hungry baby birds vying for a bite.)

(To listen to the entire discussion to see just how complicated the subject is, go to the county website https://www.goochlandva.us/ click on watch county meetings and under the BoS tab select March 14 transportation and CIP workshop.)

Goyne reported that the county’s initial application for “Smart Scale” funding for the DDI was not successful. (To learn more about this program go to https://www.smartscale.org/) As this project has a high regional priority. Staff and supervisors who sit on various regional transportation boards, will pursue other avenues to secure funding.

The Hockett Road extension Smart Scale application was recommend to receive $1.1 million, which will fully fund the project.

A roundabout for the westbound I64 exit ramp/ Oilville Road interchange, whose cost was estimated at $7.5 million, was not ranked a high statewide priority and got no funding from the latest round of Smart Scale applications. Other funds may be used, including federal dollars and local revenue sharing. About $606K in local revenue sharing and a $4 million obligation from the federal government omnibus bill are available for the project. The trick is how to find the $2.91 million shortfall.

Goyne explained that there are various sources of road funding, including the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, the Richmond Regional Transportation Authority, the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Each of these has different criteria for awarding money. These programs tend to review road projects to award funding on yearly cycles, further delaying completion. Strategizing to ensure the highest and best use of local proffer and other funding sources is crucial.

A review of the county’s arterial management plan, done in 2015, and major throughfare plan, from 2018 was done to see how priorities in those plans align with actual growth pressures.

Fairground Road safety study

Goyne elaborated on the Fairground Road safety study that the supervisors received at their March 7 meeting. (The results begin on page 91 of the March 7 board packet)

The study recommends improvements including trimming trees,  addition of turn lanes, paving gravel shoulders, adding rumble strips, and painting stop bars. The most significant recommendation is a roundabout at the Fairground/Maidens Road intersection.

Goyne said that the study allows staff to work with VDOT to implement some of the proposed improvements. The less expensive ones, including tree trimming, signage, striping, can be part of the maintenance budget.

“Mid Term” improvement including rumble strips and shoulder widening will be prioritized but are not funded.

The roundabout will be added to the transportation priority list, but no funding is currently available.

Goyne addressed concerns about the study conclusions raised by citizens, including a growth rate of 1.5 percent taken from a Travel Demand Model, which is a regional planning tool. This is reflects the increase of traffic on the road, not population growth. He said that the growth rate across the board for Central Virginia is .6 percent, but it was “bumped” for the study to conservatively account for the incomplete village small area plan studies.

Department of Motor Vehicles Crash data was used in the study, which differed from that reported by the Goochland Sheriff’s Office. Goyne said that using DMV data compares “apples to apples” for consistency across the region and state.  He said that GCSO crash data, for instance reported 66 crashes in the Fairground Road corridor in 2022, while DMV data recorded 28 crashes for the same period.

Smart Scale and other funding mechanism applications requite the use of DMV crash data to be considered, said Goyne. Use of the local data, he contended, helps to prioritize projects for improvement.

A citizen contended that more accurate and location specific traffic data is needed. Collection this data is a relatively inexpensive proposition, and would provide useful information to gage necessary road improvements related to proposed development in the corridor.