Leaders defer vote on $300 million Route 28 bypass

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors deferred action on a project to build a Route 28 bypass.

Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega asked for more time to talk to constituents who live in the area where the four-lane road will be built, in the Loch Lomond section of the county near Manassas. A total of 54 homes in this neighborhood will be demolished as part of the project.

“I want to support this project but I cannot do it without talking to our constituents,” said Vega, who vowed to hold a town hall meeting to get feedback from residents about the project.

Prince William County Transportation Director Rick Canizales, whose department is designing the roadway, on Tuesday asked Supervisors for permission to obtain $89 million in funding from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA), which earmarked the funds to be used to design the road.

Canizales urged the Board to vote for the measure in order to unlock the funds so that he can continue with his design project ordered by NVTA, but assured leaders that deferring the vote would not put the funds in jeopardy.

Once the road is designed, the $300 million projects will be submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers will need to approve the project as a portion of the roadway, at the junction of Route 28, will be built in a wetland.

The Army Corps of Engineers could kill the project if it finds it negatively impacts the sensitive environmental areas. The specter of the Federal Government shutting it down gave Supervisors pause.

“It seems we’re putting the cart before the horse,” said Brentsville District Supervisor Jeannie Lawson.

Canizales countered that notion, saying the NVTA ordered a design for a new road and that’s what his department aims to deliver. The Army Corps of Engineers isn’t slated to review the project until next year.

The Board will take up the matter again at its August 4 meeting.

The bypass will be a four-lane extension of Godwin Drive in Manassas, from where it intersects with Sudley Road, east over a tract of undeveloped land, toward the Loch Lomond neighborhood where the project will encounter 54 homes that will need to be demolished to make way for traffic, according to Canizales.

The road would parallel and then cross over a stream, called Flat Branch, bringing drivers into Fairfax County, and connecting with Route 28, which is being widened to four six lanes.