Fixing Old Bridge Road: Straightening those dangerous s-curves

LAKE RIDGE — A recently-completed study of the Old Bridge Road corridor suggests straightening and widening of some of the road’s most problematic stretches.

The study calls for removing a partial s-curve at the busy intersection of Old Bridge and Occoquan roads. That intersection has seen 31 crashes with 22 injuries between 2014 and 2017.

Straightening this portion of the four-lane Old Bridge Road would mean bulldozing the Holiness Tabernacle Church on the corner of Occoquan and Old Bridge, as well as taking the land on which the church’s parking lot sits.

The alignment of Occoquan Road at the point it meets Old Bridge would also be narrowed and shifted, and more right-turn lanes added for those turning from Occoquan Road onto eastbound Old Bridge Road toward Route 123 and Interstate 95.

The intersection has what is considered to be a failing level of service each weekday morning, and again on weekday afternoons as commuters from I-95 and Route 123 clog Old Bridge Road.

Further west at the intersection of Harbor Drive and Old Bridge Road, the study calls for the consolidation of the intersections of Minnieville Road, Harbor Drive, and the entrance to the Tacketts Mill shopping center.

This area has the highest number of crashes in the Old Bridge Road corridor in the last three years, with 43 accidents logged resulting in 25 injuries.

The study also calls for widening this stretch of Old Bridge at Tacketts Mill from four to six lanes.

And finally, there is the deadly s-curve on Old Bridge Road nestled over a creek bed between Colby and Forest Hill Road. Between the two intersections, there were more than 30 crashes with ten injuries in the past three years.

In 2009, 16-year-old Shelby Nicholson was a passenger in a Chevrolet Aveo that struck a Lincoln Navigator SUV in the s-curve. Nicholson was killed, and the driver, her 16-year-old friend, was hospitalized.

The plan calls for straightening this portion of Old Bridge Road and widening it to three lanes.

The findings of the study were presented at a meeting on Feb. 22 and paid for by the Office of Supervisor Ruth Anderson. None of the recommendations are funded, nor have they been approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors.