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Yesterday I drove northbound along Route 28 from Manassas to Sterling so I could see the changes since session began Jan. 8.
The two biggest are now both northbound traffic lights north of I-66 are gone (left-turn lanes that don’t affect northbound flow remain).
#FixRoute28

The left-turn lanes at Braddock have been sectioned off from northbound Route 28 for a few months now, which is great. It was nice to see the Route 28 entrance to Lawrence Park is now closed off with the left lane just for U-turns now and no access onto northbound Route 28.

By the end of the year, the remaining traffic lights along Route 28 between I-66 and Lawrence Park in both directions should be gone.
I know the southbound afternoon/evening commute still has that backup from Braddock all the way to Westfields Boulevard. Help is on the way.

“But that area’s outside of your district. Why do you care?”
Because thousands of my constituents drive through there to get to their jobs in Chantilly, Reston, Herndon, Dulles, Sterling and Ashburn.
That’s why I’m also glad to see the repaving/additional lane north of U.S. 50.

“But doesn’t adding an extra lane create induced demand?”
That’s not applicable in this particular case to the small, area-specific bottlenecks on northbound 28 corridor between U.S. 50 and McLearen. It’s addressing an on-ramp backup and safety problem while also improving flow.

Also, just as someone who’s 35 and has been going along that road since she was in a booster seat in the back of her mom’s Subaru, the removal of all of the traffic lights along 28 b/w Westfields Blvd and Route 7 ~17 years ago has made a *world* of difference for the corridor.

The interchange and flyover project under construction right now along Route 28 b/w I-66 and Lawrence Park picks up where we should have never left off in 2003.
This will help not just my Manassas and Manassas Park constituents but will make it quicker and safer to get to 66 too.

That’s why it’s also a big deal for my constituents who live near Ashton Avenue, Sudley Manor Drive and Balls Ford Road in Manassas as well as commuters in Gainesville and Haymarket.
It’ll also unclog the backup that stems from 28 and pours a mile back on to the off ramp from 66.

Anyway, congestion on that part of 28 in Centreville/Chantilly is going to be much better by the end of this year.
Then, the widening in Centreville from four to six lanes (3 north, 3 south) b/w Compton and New Braddock will commence while I keep advocating for the 6-7-8 hybrid.

I’ll have an update about all of that a little later. I’ll also soon be meeting with VDOT officials to get an update about my baby — implementation of the Centreville Road (Route 28) STARS study to make 28 quicker and safer in Yorkshire.
***This is not Godwin Drive extended.***

Now, just to touch all of my bases:
1) We don’t have commuter bus service along Route 28 — yet. I had to help deliver the Haymarket buses first, which we got, and the new Gainesville lot has bus service now too. (Along with Sluglines.)
2) After Thursday, I’ll have a VRE update.

3) Unless you live in NOVA, it’s hard to understand how absolutely terrible lane-use policy during the last 25 years creates unprecedented sprawl without anything even approaching adequate, existing infrastructure in place for mass transit.
I ran for office to finally fix that.

4) The reality is that we need soooooooooooooooooooo much more mass transit, high-paying jobs in the ‘burbs and affordable housing (which is hard to maintain w/ high-paying jobs).
Until we get there, I’m in for all-of-the-above: more trains, more buses and better/safer roads too.

5) I can’t undo 40 years of terrible land use decisions in which we should have taken developed our transportation infrastructure — including mass transit — before building hundreds of thousands of new houses from Arlington to Culpeper.
That cake was baked before I was born.

6) What I can do though is help modernize our existing infrastructure and integrate it into our communities in ways that actually help commuters while also pushing for an exponential increase in telework, which we are still behind on in the private and public sectors.

7) The it’s-a-good-problem-to-have challenge is our NOVA economy is wildly diverse — from federal/contractor jobs to service industry, from tech to classroom. We have so many different types of jobs available that telework doesn’t cover everything.
But it can help.

8) Lastly, by passing HB 1414/SB 890 in 2020, SB 1716 in 2019 and HB 768 in 2018, we’re doing something to fund transportation in NOVA beyond HB 2313 in 2013.
We have much more to go but we’re in a way better place to address our challenges than three years ago.
#FixRoute28