Anderson pushes for auxiliary lane to ease I-95 traffic at Occoquan. Legally, can it be built? 

OCCOQUAN — Commuters on Interstate 95 south have experienced the bottleneck at the Occoquan River.

Transportation officials have tried to fix the problem through the years, but the cars keep coming.

Back in 2010, The Virginia Department of Transportation added a fourth lane to I-95 south moved a bottleneck that plagued drivers near Springfield further south at Occoquan into Prince William County.

A few years later, the I-95 E-ZPass Express Lanes open, but that doesn’t help the non-carpoolers or thrifty commuters who don’t want to pay tolls to use the lanes.

There is another fix on the horizon though, in the form of a shoulder lane between Route 123 exit and the Prince William Parkway (Route 294) that would be open only during the afternoon rush hour. Prince William County Occoquan district Supervisor Ruth Anderson thinks this will alleviate the problem for the time being. From her position in Occoquan, she sees the traffic backups, hears from area motorists, has seen this congestion problem listed by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments as the biggest traffic issue in the area.

“We know it’s the worst in the region,” she said.

According to the Transportation Planning Board at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, I-95 South between Lorton Road and Gordon Blvd (Route 123) is one of the worst bottlenecks in the Metropolitan Washington. D.C. region. The location was listed as the worst in the second and fourth quarters in 2017, and second overall in 2017.

The ranking changes depending on data that TPB staff review on a quarterly basis, according to transportation specialists at MWCOG.

But an existing contract with the state and Transurban, the operators of the E-ZPass lanes, could throw a wrench into the effort to add the new shoulder lane. That contract element limits the construction of new lanes that would compete with their toll lanes.

Anderson is hoping that by converting an existing shoulder, this can be an exception.

“We’re hoping that’s the case,” she said.

Prince William County Transportation Department Director Rick Canizales hopes this, too, since it is an auxiliary lane would help eliminate a traffic trouble spot where drivers weave in and out of traffic. The new shoulder lane would make it safer as well.

“It’s for the safety, and not an expansion project,” he said.

In the end, VDOT and Transurban will have to work that out. To get the deal done, both Anderson and Canizales are prepared to back a proposal that would provide some compensation to Transurban.

Anderson submitted the project to Virginia’s Smart Scale Program and on the Smart Scale application, the project is listed as “I-95 Southbound Auxiliary Lane Project (Exit 160 to 158).”

This project consists of reconstructing the existing I-95 southbound mainline shoulder to provide a 12-foot wide continuous auxiliary lane between the Route 123 on-ramp and the off-ramp to Prince William Parkway, the description on the application states.  A ramp meter will be in place as well.

A few years ago, VDOT did a similar auxiliary lane on I-66 between Washington Boulevard on-ramp to the off-ramp at the Dulles Airport Access Road in Arlington, and there was pushback from Arlington residents because of a past agreement with the state that prevented it from widening the highway beyond four lanes. But, in the end, the auxiliary lane was built.

The I-95 lane would be open to all traffic all the time, and not governed by an overhead light-up Red X sign, denoting when the drivers may use the lanes. Those Red X lanes are common on I-66.

“It’s not just a commuter bottleneck,” Anderson said, noting the importance of the highway as an east-coast throughfare.

The total price tag on the application is $31.5 million, and a decision won’t be made until spring 2019.

To some though, it seems I-95 will remain one big construction project for years to come.

Between the Capital Beltway and Fredericksburg, there are several projects underway that will impact the commuters in one form or another. The project to unsnarl the bottleneck at Garrisonville Road in Stafford County was recently completed.  But now there are plans to extend the E-Z Pass Express Lanes for 12 miles from just south of Garrisonville Road to Fredericksburg.

Before that project even begins, new work is underway now to add two new lanes and a new bridge across the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg.