MANASSAS — Historical preservationists don’t like it. Transportation officials favor it.
It’s called “alternative 2B,” and it’s part of a plan to extend Godwin Drive from near Novant Health/UVA Health System Prince William Medical Center in Manassas east to Route 28. The planned four-lane, a four-mile extension would serve Route 28 bypass would run between Lomond neighborhood and homes in Manassas Park.
The road would cross over Bull Run into Fairfax County and cross a portion Bull Run Regional Park through the hallowed ground, where preservationists say an estimated 151 people died in one of the first engagements of the Civil War.
Preservationists oppose this route, as we reported last year. A second option dubbed “alternative 2A” has the new road connecting with Route 28 in Prince William, south of the park.
The Northern Virginia Transportation just awarded $3.5 million of the needed $5 million to pay for an environmental study for the project. If “2B” is the chosen route, “we’ve got to get a lot of environmental permits to make that possible,” said Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Chairman, and Prince William Coles District Supervisor Marty Nohe.
The elected official told a group of business owners Monday at the Prince William Chamber of Commerce that “2B” is the preferred route.
The $220 million project is expected to be completed by 2025. Once finished, Nohe said drivers will have an easier time getting to businesses along what are today clogged portions of Route 28 in Manassas and Yorkshire, which is now dubbed the most congested road in Northern Virginia.
Widening the current portion of Route 28 through Yorkshire would cost at least $270 million, much of it due to the number of properties the state would need to take to expand the road, he added. The project would add only three new lanes, not four, and is a non-starter, said Nohe.
Much of the anticipated drivers that will use the new bypass live west of Manassas in the Linton Hall corridor. However, traffic flows like water, and there are fears that those drivers will change their commutes and chose to use the new bypass instead of what many do today, using Route 234 bypass to Interstate 66.
“There is the potential for that to happen,” said Nohe.
Improvements coming to Virginia Railway Express and new toll lanes being built on I-66, both expected to open by 2022, should help alleviate those fears, he added.
