Dumfries Overlooked by Bi-County Parkway Planners

Dumfries Mayor Calls for Transportation Summit 

DUMFRIES, Va. — If a Bi-County Parkway is built linking Interstate 95 to Dulles Airport, the highway would start and stop in Dumfries.

Initial plans for the major thoroughfare, which would run in the 45-mile “North-South Corridor of Statewide Significance” between I-95 and Va. 7 in Loudoun County, show Va. 234 (which intersects with I-95 and U.S. 1 in Dumfries) being converted into a limited access highway.

But as Dumfries residents, and drivers who commute through the area already know, the area is heavily congested. Right now, there are no plans that are apart of the “North-South Corridor” study that include improving road conditions in Dumfries.

“There are several long term plans for Prince William Parkway, Route 123, and Route 234, but we’re not planning on doing anything for 234 for the long term right now,” said Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton.

The secretary, who lives in nearby Triangle, is aware of how bad traffic can back up here.

“It’s so important for us from a regional and statewide mobility perspective, because Route 1 and 95 are so close together, whenever there is a problem on 95 everyone moves over to Route 1,” he added.

U.S. 1 is being improved, but it’s being done in pieces. The project to widen the road from four to six lanes has already been completed in Triangle near the National Museum of the Marine Corps just outside the Town of Dumfries, and a new six-land bridge has been built over the Neabsco Creek near Neabsco Mills and Blackburn roads in Woodbridge. Now Prince William County and state officials will begin widening U.S. 1 in Woodbridge from four to six lanes from Neabsco Creek to Dale Boulevard, and from Mary’s Way to the Occoquan River, respectively.

Dumfries is still left out in the cold, and with the planned nearby addition of 3,000 new homes at Potomac Shores, and a new parkway of the same name that will also intersect U.S. 1 and Va. 234, improvements here are desperately needed.

“You have Potomac Shores Parkway coming through the Town of Dumfries, you have the Route 1 widening project just north of here, and now you have the ‘North-South Corridor’ coming through the town of Dumfries,” said Mayor Gerald Forman. “All these projects are going to take place in the next five years.”

While there are some plans to help mitigate traffic at the busy U.S. 1 / Va. 234 interchange, they are unpopular with town residents. They call for preventing right turns at the intersection, building jersey walls, new service roads, and routing drivers through an expanded commuter lot to get where they’re going.

“We have to have a transportation summit, and getting the right people in the room is – [the Virginia Department of Transportation, Prince William County, and Potomac Shores,” said Foreman. “This is a local fix… together with Prince William County we can move forward.”