MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- Builders and planners of the Interstate 95 high-occupancy toll lanes from Springfield to Stafford celebrated the halfway mark in the project’s progress with a visit to its southernmost construction site Oct. 16.
Susan Stimpson, chair of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, and fellow board member Bob Thomas accompanied personnel from the Virginia Department of Transportation, Fluor-Lane 95 — the joint venture funding the construction — and subcontractor Interlock Steelworkers Inc. to the site of the flyover from the end of the HOT lanes to Garrisonville Road. Until the eventual beginning of the construction that will take the express lanes down to Fredericksburg, this will be their southern terminus.
The two-dozen or so representatives who visited the site of the new bridge Oct. 10 took the chance to paint their signatures on a crossframe that will be used to connect the bridge girders.
Construction of the new lanes began in August of 2012 and is expected to be finished by late December of 2014, with the lanes open early the following year.
“We have a footprint on the entire, 29-mile corridor, meaning there isn’t an aspect of the job we haven’t started,” said Jamie Breme, spokeswoman for Flour-Lane 95.
With most of the steel bridge supports erected, overnight full road closures on I-95, such as those near Garrisonville Road last weekend, are almost at an end, said Breme. Over the next year and two months, she said workers will finish paving and bridgework, carry out grading and drainage work, and put sound walls, tolling technology and signs in place. Finally, grass seed will be laid down.
“Motorists will still see lane closures in the 95 corridor, but none of those overnight full closures,” Breme said.
The project, which runs a total of 29 miles, is expanding the existing express lanes that already ran south to Dumfries Road, from two lanes to three, and then building two express lanes south to Garrisonville Road. Drivers will be charged a toll that will rise and fall with traffic volume to use the lanes. Vehicles with more than three people, as well as motorcycles, buses and emergency vehicles will be able to use the lanes for free.
The work includes nine new bridges, including four flyovers, and three more bridges are being improved. Deck support is finished on six of the new bridges, Breme said. The last bridge to set steel will be at the north end of the route, between Edsall Road and Route 236. As of the event, 109 of the eventual 170 steel bridge girders had been put in place.
VDOT spokesman Mike Salmon said the new Telegraph Road bridge adjacent to Marine Corps Base Quantico is scheduled to open in late December of this year, but planners hope to have it open sooner. The previous bridge was closed in March and demolished.
Salmon said the deck has also been laid on the new entry/exit bridge at Joplin Road.
Breme said about half a million tons of asphalt will be used in the project, and about 130,000 had already been laid down. Of the total 1.5 million linear feet of conduit, about 800,000 were in place.
— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com