Opponents of the Manassas Battlefield Bypass are twisting logic in their attempt to explain how this limited-access, nine-mile road connecting heavily travelled Interstate 66 in Prince William County to Route 50 in Loudoun County is somehow a bad idea.

The much-needed bypass has been on the planning books for three decades. But it wasn’t until this year that former Prince William Board chairman Sean Connaughton, now Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation, finally managed to get all the major stakeholders to give it a thumbs-up, including the Federal Highway Administration, the National Park Service, which runs the nearby Manassas National Battlefield Park, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the elected boards of supervisors of both counties.