I-95 at Occoquan to FredEx: $1 billion in transportation improvements coming

WOODBRIDGE — Gov. Ralph Northam today announced multiple major transportation improvements in the region.

The first and most debated will the extension of the Interstate 95 southbound fourth lane from Route 123 at Occoquan to Prince William Parkway. Dubbed an auxiliary lane, the project will move south a bottleneck that occurs when the I-95 south travel lanes merge from four to three as drivers cross the Occoquan River from Fairfax into Prince William County.

Drivers in the new lane will automatically exit onto Prince William Parkway or may continue south on I-95 by merging left.

“We’re going to move forward on this project without the risk of a compensation event,” said Virginia Transportation Secretary Shannon Valentine.

That “compensation event” had auxiliary lane project tied up in debate for more than two years as local state legislators.

Under an agreement with the state and operators of the I-95 and I-495 E-ZPass Express Lanes Transurban, the Australian-based company could have sought damages from the state if the lane had been built. Under the theory, if capacity on the travel lanes is improved fewer people could choose to pay to use the toll lanes.

“In a letter from Jennifer Aument, president of the Transurban Group North America, Transurban will not seek compensation for this particular project,” Valentine added.

Prince William County Occoquan District Supervisor Ruth Anderson pushed for its construction. The bottleneck was a recurring point of concern amount residents who, at a series of town hall meetings held by Anderson and Potomac Local, said the bottleneck was causing more congestion on local roads as drivers bailed out off of I-95 and onto Old Bridge Road to beat the traffic.

“I want to give credit to the residents who came to the think tank,” said Anderson, who pushed to bring attention to the auxiliary lane project to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Transportation Planning Board. “I was through the data we collected there, and the input we received that this project got the attention it deserved.”

Also in Woodbridge, Transurban will pay for and construct a new, reversible $45 million ramp from the Express Lanes to Opitz Boulevard. The ramp construction will begin next year and, when complete, will allow drivers on the Express Lanes to enter and exit at Opitz while providing better access to Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center and the shops in and around the Potomac Mills mall area, said Northam.

In Stafford and Fredericksburg, the Northam said work on a 10-mile extension of the Express Lanes from Garrisonville Road to Truslow Road — dubbed FredEx — is set to begin later this year. Contract negotiations are expected to wrap up in the spring, and then two new, reversible lanes will be built that will operate on the same principles as the rest of the lanes in the corridor — vehicles with three more occupants ride free while those with two or less pay to use the lanes. All vehicles that use the lanes will need an E-ZPass or E-ZPass Flex transponder to pay the toll.

FredEx is expected to improve capacity in the area — recently dubbed the most congested spot in the nation — by 66 percent. The new lanes should open in 2022, the same year new toll lanes on I-66 open between Haymarket at the Capital Beltway, and create 9,000 new jobs in the Fredericksburg region, says Northam.

Finally, on the Capital Beltway, Transurban will complete its stretch of toll lanes by extending its facility 2.5 miles north from Dulles Toll Road to the American Legion Bridge, which links Virginia and Maryland. The new lanes will have access to George Washington Memorial Parkway. When complete, the entire stretch of I-495 in Virginia, between Springfield and Maryland will have toll lanes.

Altogether, the projects represent a $1 billion investment in Northern Virginia.

At a press conference Tuesday streamed live on Facebook, Northam was flanked by Prince William County legislators from the State Senate: George Barker, Jeremy McPike, Scott Surovell, and from the House of Delegates: Danica Roem and Luke Torian.

The announcement comes after we learned earlier this month that zero of Prince William County’s transportation projects submitted to state transportation officials for SmartScale funding — to include the I-95 auxiliary lane project — were denied funding.