Fairfax County leaders have reacted favorably to a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) proposal for expanding Express Lanes on I-95 to reduce traffic bottlenecks.
VDOT officials sketched out their plan on Tuesday (Sept. 22) for converting the existing reversible I-95 Express Lanes, which can be used only in one direction at a time, into a bidirectional network running 45 miles from Fairfax south to Spotsylvania County.
VDOT, which owns the roadway, and Transurban, which operates it, are collaborating on the project, which carries an estimated price tag of $4.5 billion. Transurban held a meeting with potential contractors on Sept. 10 to outline the project scope.
The proposal calls for three express lanes in each direction from the Franconia-Springfield Parkway south to the Prince William Parkway. From there, two lanes in each direction would run to the southern portion of the project, which would be extended 10 miles from U.S. Route 17 to the Spotsylvania Parkway.
The number of general-purpose or non-toll traffic lanes would not be reduced to accommodate the extra Express Lanes, VDOT officials told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at a Transportation Committee meeting.
The presentation touched on the concept but didn’t delve too deeply into the details, which remain to be ironed out.
“We are in the very early stages. We are laying out the concepts,” said Krishna Potturi, VDOT’s recently appointed mega projects director.
Potturi told supervisors that the current timeline calls for a public information campaign in 2027, followed by feasibility studies and a project decision by late 2028. Construction could take place in the early 2030s.
County officials were aware of the proposal, but “this is the first time we’ve seen a timetable,” Board Chair Jeff McKay said.
“My hope is these dates stick,” he said.
McKay said having Express Lanes running 24/7 in both directions would be a vast improvement over the current situation, which generally only allows northbound traffic on weekday mornings before reversing to southbound traffic in the afternoons. The I-95 Express Lanes follow the opposite schedule on Saturdays and operate northbound only on Sundays.
“This was probably the biggest mistake ever made in Virginia’s interstate highway system,” McKay said.
VDOT officials said most of the proposed expansion can be conducted using right-of-way already controlled by the state government. Not having to acquire extensive tracts of land “changes the dynamics of this project significantly,” McKay said.
Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck advised VDOT to take care when engineering the project to avoid incentivizing drivers to jump off the highway and clog local roads in Lorton and surrounding areas.
Residents in those communities have long complained about traffic impacts, Storck said.
“Those folks live it every day,” he said.
