A major Fairfax County thoroughfare could be overwhelmed with new cars if a gargantuan bundle of home-building proposals is approved in neighboring Loudoun County.
The some 28,000 proposed new houses could reshape the outlying Northern Virginia county, and officials also expect the traffic impact could spill onto roads farther east. Loudoun County transportation officials who could speak on the matter did not return calls on Thursday, however.
Route 50, which runs through both counties, would “experience over six hours of stop and go traffic conditions daily” at the Route 28 intersection if the home-building projects are approved, said a Virginia Department of Transportation letter sent to Loudoun earlier this month.
The vexing problem of solving transportation impacts across jurisdictions is nothing new, but the sheer size of Loudoun County’s zoning proposals sets them apart from others. Fairfax County could eventually be faced with mitigating the shock waves of a historic zoning decision they ultimately have little control over.
“I think it’s probably going to have the most impact to the folks who live in the Route 50 corridor,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member Joan DuBois, who represents the Dranesville district.
“I’m not sure we should be in the business of telling Loudoun County what to do,” she later added.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Catherine Hudgins wondered how the Dulles Toll Road — already clogged with eastward traffic — might be affected by westward development.
“If you travel the Dulles Toll Road today, you will notice that it’s a very congested facility,” she said. “The question is, would we be looking to accommodate more of that movement, and how might we do it?”
VDOT is recommending that Loudoun County conduct a wider analysis of the impacts to the regional transportation system coordinated with both Fairfax and Prince William Counties.
“Traffic models indicate that by 2025 the addition of 28,000 homes would place a significant burden on the transportation network — even with all of the improvements that are scheduled to be completed in the area by that time,” said VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris.
