State roads funding improvements in Shenandoah Valley

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today that the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved funding for significant projects that will improve travel in the Staunton region and the Shenandoah Valley. The projects are part of the Six-Year Improvement Program, which allocates $13.1 billion to transportation improvements statewide over the next six years beginning July 1.

“The program reflects input from the community, including a regional public meeting held over the spring and written comments received in the last few months,” said McAuliffe.  “The public played an important role in helping the CTB to shape the transportation program, making the best use of limited resources on projects that will ease congestion and move traffic more efficiently.”

Project highlights in the Shenandoah Valley include:

• I-81 at Exit 310 in Frederick County – The program funds $49 million to reconstruct the interchange ramps on I-81, exit 310, at Route 37 (south). The project will help alleviate tight turning maneuvers currently being experienced by drivers at this interchange ramps and on Route 37 and U.S. Route 11. The design will allow more lane capacity, including many dual-left turns, to accommodate more vehicles waiting to make a left-turn onto Route 37 and the I-81 ramps.
• Route 11 over Cedar Creek in Shenandoah County – $7.2 million will go toward a new two-lane bridge and remove both northbound and southbound existing bridges.
• I-81 pavement rehabilitation – This project will rehabilitate more than sixteen miles of I-81 in Augusta, Shenandoah and Frederick counties.  A milling process will remove several inches of surface and subsurface pavement. The subsurface will be replaced with new base asphalt material and a new road surface pavement will be applied.

The six-year program also allocates funding to rehabilitate a total of 95 lane miles of primary routes and 110 lane miles of interstate roads in the Shenandoah Valley.

The program will be updated later this year to comply with the new prioritization process, which was signed into law under House Bill 2 by McAuliffe earlier this year.  Under the process, projects will be objectively selected based on regional needs.

The CTB will work in collaboration with localities to set weights for key factors like congestion mitigation, economic development, accessibility, safety and environmental quality. Specific projects will then be screened and selected for funding beginning in July 2016.