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Safety improvements coming to Logmill
Safety improvements are coming to Logmill Road next year. On Tuesday, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors took action to land a federal grant to level off at least one dangerous hump in the mountain road.Supervisors voted unanimously to shift local transportation funds that were earmarked for U.S. Route 1 and Mountain Road in Haymarket.
By designating that $270,000 for Logmill, the county will leverage another $2.43 million in grant money.
The plan, said Transportation Director Tom Blaser, is to level a large hump in the road near Parnell Court. Blaser said the hump obstructs the view, keeping drivers from seeing oncoming cars.
If the money goes far enough, Blaser said he'd also like to level a second hump further west toward the mountain.
In addition, the funds will likely be used to put in a turn lane in the Parnell Court area so vehicles headed toward the mountain from U.S. 15 can get out of the through-way as they make right-hand turns.
Gainesville Supervisor John Stirrup (R) said one of the reasons the project will take so much money is because officials will have to buy the right of way from adjacent property owners.
Often, the Virginia Department of Transportation owns the land for many yards on both sides of a road. That isn't the case here because, “Logmill was built way before any VDOT standards,” Stirrup said.
That means the public property stops at the edge of the road so in order to build shoulders or turn-lanes, officials must first buy the land on the sides.
While it's not the only safety problem in the county, Logmill got bumped to the top of the priority list last month after two Battlefield students were killed in a late-night car crash on the mountain road. That crash, which police attributed to a speeding driver and a deer, was not related to the hump in the road. However two other Battlefield teens were killed last summer in another crash that police believe was related
Those four deaths were only the most recent in a string of serious crashes on Logmill in recent years.
Blaser said his staff hasn't finalized the scope of the project yet; Tuesday's funding approval was just the first step in the process. However, he said the work will likely be started in fall 2012 and will take about three to six months.
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