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Consultant unveils Broadview Options
Last Wednesday, Feb. 27, the town transportation sub-committee and members of the Business and Transportation Sub Committee (BTSC) met with an HNTB Corp. consultant to review proposed alternatives for Broadview Avenue.
The BTSC, which consists of business owners, community leaders, and commuters, was created by the Economic Development Advisory as part of Warrenton's Comprehensive Plan.
According to Christopher Mothersead, town planning and community development director, the meeting worked just as it should have.
“The consultant is an expert at giving highly technical information, but it’s without an understanding of the local community,” Mothersead said. “The steering committee [BTSC] has an understanding of the community and provides a more realistic face of the challenges of what can be implemented.”
HNTB's proposed plans include replacing left-turn lanes with a raised median, consolidating business driveways, and creating service roads for access.
HNTB devised five preliminary alternatives;
• Alternative 1: Do nothing;
• Alternative 2: Widen the road to six lanes and add a median;
• Alternative 3: Maintain four lanes and add a median;
• Alternative 4: Maintain four lanes, add a median, and consolidate driveways;
• Alternative 5: Maintain four lanes, add a median, consolidate driveways, and build service roads.
HNTB identified the number of crossing conflicts, merge conflicts, and diverge conflicts for each alternative, as well as the impact that each would have on traffic volumes during peak hours.
A proposed connector road, a second bypass between U.S. 211 and U.S. 17, was used as a variable since it would enable some of the traffic to go around Broadview.
The second bypass was suggested in Warrenton's 2002 Comprehensive Plan. It would divert through traffic and potentially reduce future traffic volume on Broadview Avenue by 30 percent during the peak hour, between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.
However, it had previously been decided that the connector alone would not solve other issues in the corridor.
All of the alternatives, present trade-offs between traffic flow, safety, and business access.
Mothersead stressed that these are “all preliminary alternatives, and not a final conclusion.”
HNTB is currently working to plug the preliminary alternative plans into a computerized modeling system to calculate a numeric value for each of the factors assessed.
The modeling is expected to be completed by the end of this month, at which point a meeting will be held with Broadview merchants.
Mothersead said that after that, the merchants will meet on their own to select “the best alternative or a combination of alternatives.”
“We’re not expecting to find one solution,” Mothersead said. “I expect we’ll address short-term congestion while we investigate funding for longer term solutions.”
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