Story by Chris Graham
The Interstate 64 interchange near the new Waynesboro Town Center has benefited from a series of inexpensive operational enhancements that should improve traffic flows at what was already a busy intersection.
“We evaluated the shoulders and pavement width and determined by restriping the Route 340 end of the exit ramp, VDOT was able to add a 200 foot turn-lane. The result is two 12-foot turn lanes,” said Dean Gustafson, the Northwestern Regional Operations director in the Staunton District office of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The westbound traffic ramp off I-64 to U.S. 340 at Exit 94 is used by as many as 1,000 vehicles every weekday rush hour, according to VDOT estimates. Those numbers will be expected to increase with the opening of the Town Center – and without the improvements put in place, engineers were projecting the possibility of traffic backups onto mainline I-64.
Backups are still possible even with the improvements, Gustafson said, but the ramp modifications undertaken by VDOT, the city and the developer of the Town Center should reduce the potential of them occurring.
“It is a small, low-cost but high impact action that will help until we can substantially reconfigure the interchange,” Gustafson said.
The ramp work was completed on Sept. 12.
VDOT will begin work on a longer-term project to improve traffic flow at the interchange early next year.
Chris Graham is the executive editor of The Augusta Free Press.
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