A $13 Million Mile Will Ease Route 17 Bottleneck

By Amber Lester Wednesday, January 27, 2010

A project to widen Route 17 in York County will expand, albeit on a much smaller scale than originally planned.

More than $13 million in federal grant money will go toward the Virginia Department of Transportation’s work to widen Route 17. The project had been delayed by state budget cuts.

The Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization decided to allocate the grant funds to York at its Jan. 20 meeting. The money will be spread over five years, with four allocations of $2.7 million and a final allocation of $2.6 million in the fifth year.

The original project would have widened Route 17 from Hampton Highway to Wolf Trap Road. That project, originally slated to begin around 2011, was expected to cost about $42 million. Budget cuts stalled the project, however. Now, the HRTPO grant will go toward fixing what York County Principal Planner Tim Cross calls the most critical area – a one-mile stretch from the Washington Square Plaza to Ella Taylor Road.

“We chose to focus on a critical segment and take a bite-size chunk out of that project,” he said. “That takes care of a major choke point.”

In its application for the grant funding, the planning office noted the one-mile stretch was the most congested part of Route 17 in York County. Cross said about 55,000 vehicles travel that area daily. Although the posted speed limit is 45 mph, traffic can move anywhere between 42 and 12 mph at peak hours, he said.

The work is not expected to begin until October 2014, but could still be subject to delays. The project will be administered by VDOT, but will likely be classified as a separate project from the larger widening plan.

“Although this will likely have a different project number than the existing project, we’ve been advised by VDOT that they will likely create what they call a “parent-child relationship” between the two projects since they are very closely related,” Cross said in an e-mail.

VDOT has already completed preliminary engineering and right-of-way acquisition, so the $13 million price tag is the estimate for construction costs. VDOT spokeswoman Lauren Hansen said VDOT project estimates typically include a contingency fund, along with costs of construction, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocation and employee payment and insurance. The project has not yet gone out to construction companies for bids.

The HRTPO also awarded York a $315,000 grant to replace one of the two Yorktown trolleys. The county also received about $2.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to repave parts of Newman Road, Wolf Trap Road, Cary’s Chapel Road and possibly Seaford Road; install sidewalks on Commons Way, part of Hubbard Lane and part of Hampton Highway; and extend a median turning lane on Hampton Highway.