1. Route 15 update
The Catoctin Coalition
25 MAY 2007
1. VA Deputy Secretary of Transportation conducts minibus tour of Route 15 construction
2. County allocates $2 million more for Lucketts Plan sidewalks
3. VDOT starts chipping away at Lucketts plan
4. Journey Through Hallowed Ground legislation reintroduced in Congress
1. At a February 2 meeting in Leesburg, Rep. Frank
Wolf (R-10th
District) listened to a VDOT presentation on
Route 15 safety that he had requested, and sought a way to
forward improvements on the road with the limited funds
available.
This meeting was subsequent to calls for action after
the lack of a guardrail just north of Leesburg at the Route 15
bypass split lead to the deaths of teenaged siblings in early
December. The site of the accident was not within the area
VDOT had slated for any safety improvements. As a result of
the outcry by citizens and public officials, and a report by the
Loudoun Traffic Safety Commission, VDOT reported at this
meeting that a guardrail had been installed at the site of the
accident. Eight other locations in the immediate area have
subsequently been identified as needing guardrails, VDOT
staff reported, and installation plans are underway (est. cost
$250K).
After a brief presentation by Catoctin District
Supervisor Sally Kurtz on Federal Highway Administration
resources for safety improvements, Rep. Wolf proposed that
local elected officials, VDOT staff, and representatives of
citizens’ groups visit the Federal Highway Administration’s
Turner-Fairbank highway research facility in McLean to learn
what ongoing research and low-cost strategies can help
improve safety on U.S. 15 through Loudoun County. He
also suggested that officials and citizens meet at least quarterly
to assess road safety and build consensus on improvements.
In its presentation VDOT discussed construction at
three intersections north of Leesburg that is now underway,
and did assert that (despite all the attention to the problems
of Route 15), none of the top 10 worst accident spots in the
county are located on it.
Invited by Congressman Wolf to the meeting at the
County Government Center in Leesburg were VA Deputy
Secretary of Transportation Scott Kasprowicz, BOS
Chairman Scott York (who could not make the beginning of
the meeting and so was represented by his aide Keith
Nussbaum), Catoctin District Supervisor Sally Kurtz, her aide
and Planning Commissioner Nancy Doane, Leesburg
Supervisor and Ruritan Club member Jim Clem, VDOT
Northern District Administrator Dennis Morrison, retiring
assistant county administrator Terrie Laycock, Catoctin
Coalition members, members of the Lucketts Ruritan Club,
and VDOT staff. Leesburg Councilman Ken Reid also
attended. Other citizens and officials were present.
2. Lucketts citizens have been calling since at least
2001 for a permanent reduction of the speed limit to 25 mph
within the village. Vehicles routinely ignore all the signage,
Route 15: a beautiful entrance into the Commonwealth of
Virginia
and their speeding and illegal passing endanger residents,
visitors, children, parents, and staff at Lucketts Elementary
and the athletic fields. Rear-ending and broadside accidents in
this half-mile stretch of the road have resulted in a number of
injury accidents.
Subsequent to VDOT’s insistence on a 40-mph design
speed for the Lucketts Village safety improvements (for which
the design firm Kimley-Horn presented a design last
summer), citizens pressed harder for a permanent reduction,
circulating petitions. First VDOT said it was not legal to
lower the speed limit on a federal highway. The Coalition
requested a copy of the text of the law forbidding 25 mph,
citing that other towns and villages in Loudoun on U.S.
highways (Aldie, Upperville) have a 25-mph posted speed No
text was ever produced. The Coalition asked VDOT to
conduct a study to warrant reduction. VDOT said its study
showed the driving speeds through the village were too high
to make a speed limit reduction safe.
In a letter to VDOT protesting the denial, The
Catoctin Coalition stated:
“[The Lucketts village speed limit reduction study] is, for us,

2. a good illustration of the need for change in how Virginia
thinks about road design. Today’s pop psychology has
provided us with the term “enabling behavior,” and it is a
term that begs to be applied to this study [which stated in
essence that]:
“A. Route 15’s design through Lucketts village facilitates
speeding.
B. Drivers speed.
C. We must continue to allow drivers to speed through the
village.
“What we need to do instead—in Lucketts, on Route 15,
and throughout Virginia—is design roads that invite
compliance to traffic laws. We can no longer ignore the
savings in lives, injuries, property damage, and enforcement
costs that such design provides.
“Our roads need to serve our communities, not vice
versa.”
Illegal right-hand passing on Route 15 at the
Lucketts/Stumptown roads traffic signal
Subsequently, Delegate Joe May introduced a bill in the
Virginia General Assembly that would have legislated a lower
speed limit for the village. Unfortunately, this was among the
many, many introduced bills that fail to make it through the
Virginia House.
We are considering next steps.
3. The Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center visit
organized by Rep. Frank Wolf took place last Friday. This
center, located next to the CIA in McLean, conducts research
on all aspects of highway travel, including materials, safety,
operations, etc.*
In addition to VDOT staff, two aides from
Congressman Wolf’s office, Catoctin District Planning
Commissioner Nancy Doane, Loudoun Office of
Transportation Services assistant director Andy Beacher, and I
attended. Sally Kurtz could not attend due to family illness in
North Carolina. Other invites not attending were Tom
Howder of the Lucketts Ruritan Club, Leesburg Supervisor
and Ruritan member Jim Clem, his aide, and Leesburg
Councilman Ken Reid.
Our hosts were an engineer and a psychologist, who
work together on safety research. They also conduct safety
audits on existing roads, to recommend improvements that
will work. They emphasized the importance of driver
behavior and perceptions in road design. (For example, Dr.
Thomas Granda described how narrowing lanes, or using
striping to make lanes appear narrower, has been shown to
reduce driver speeds by 4-5 mph in areas of chronic
speeding).
To conduct a safety audit, the center’s researchers
“map” the road digitally using a specially equipped van that
records terrain, structures, road markings, and even trees and
other features—all of which may affect driver behavior. Then,
back in the lab, they convert the data to a computer-
generated visual “drive” of the road, and can add and subtract
markings and other road design features to the program.
The next step is to have “drivers” climb into a
specially programmed Saturn sedan in the laboratory, and
navigate through the computer-generated road program
projected on screens in front of the car. The action on the
screen responds to the accelerator, steering, and brake, and
researchers thus can test the efficacy of changing traffic
patterns, road markings, and other design features in a
physical context that replicates a driver’s true experience on a
particular road.
Researchers then can objectively assess what design
changes will result in improved ability of drivers to negotiate
the particular section of road safely. Michael F. Trentacoste,
director of the Office of Safety Research & Development,
said such audits have been performed for highways in
Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
It was requested by Mrs. Doane and seconded by
J.T. Griffin, Rep. Wolf’s aide, that such an audit be under-
taken for Route 15 north of Leesburg. VDOT officials at the
meeting will coordinate with TFHRC staff for the audit.
* Take a look at the website (http://www.tfhrc.gov/) for an idea
of the breadth of TFHRC research.
4. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground
(JTHG) Heritage Area Act (H.R. 319 ) was introduced on
January 5th
by Congressman Frank Wolf in the House of
Representatives. He was joined in sponsorship by 16 other
representatives, including seven from Virginia, reports the
January JTHG newsletter.
“America's history can literally be traced along this
corridor,” Congressman Wolf said. “The Monroe Doctrine,
the Marshall Plan, and the Camp David Accords were penned
right there in our back yard.”
One week later, on January 12, Senator John Warner
introduced S.289 in the Senate, and was joined in principal
co-sponsorship by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), and in
sponsorship by Senators Jim Webb(D-VA), Barbara Mikulski

3. (D-MD), Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA), and John D.
Rockefeller, IV (D-WV).
In introducing the bill, Senator Warner said, “In
Virginia, we are lucky to have a region that is worthy of the
recognition and celebration that a National Heritage Area
designation affords. No area in America could possibly be
more deserving of this status than the area affectionately
known as the Journey Through Hallowed Ground. I intend
to work with my colleagues in the Senate to give it the
historic recognition that it deserves.”
Supervisors Jim Clem, Mick Staton, Steve Snow, and
The Lucketts Community Center, on the National Register of
Historic Places, fronts on Route 15
Eugene Delgaudio voted against supporting the JTHG
initiative in Loudoun last year—the only jurisdiction in the
three-state corridor to do so. (Chairman York and Supervisors
Kurtz, Jim Burton, and Lori Waters voted in favor.) This
failure to support the initiative meant the loss of pro bono
road design work for improvement of Route 15 and adjacent
secondary roads by a private road design firm working with
JTHG staff.
Scenic and historic designations bring tourism-based
economic development, with one study showing communities
can expect an average boost of $34,000 per lane-mile in
tourism dollars a year as a result of scenic byway designation.
5. At the request of Virginia Deputy Secretary
of Transportation Scott Kasprowicz, local officials and
residents will tour by minibus the underway construction on
Route 15 north of Leesburg. The tour is scheduled for March
1.
These $7 million “spot safety improvements” at
three intersections north of Leesburg, consist of
• a southbound left-hand turn lane onto Limestone School
Road,
• a northbound left-hand turn lane and a southbound right-
hand turn lane onto Montresor Road,
• a northbound left-hand turn lane onto New Valley Church
Road, and
• a southbound truck inspection area just north of Spinks
Ferry Road.
(A planned southbound right-hand turn lane onto
New Valley Church Road was removed from the plans earlier,
after citizens conducted a turn count showing that only seven
cars made the turn at the 7.5 hours of peak travel times, and
that cars turning west would do so several miles north, at
Stumptown Road in Lucketts village. Construction of the
lane would also have endangered the private residence at the
corner of this historic crossroads area.)
Citizens and The Catoctin Coalition have raised
questions since 2002 about whether the planned
“improvements” would truly improve safety on the road, and
whether they would reduce the endemic speeding, illegal
passing, and reckless driving on the road—the causes of many
accidents. In addition, citizens asserted that the turn lanes
increased traffic flow for commuters at the expense of safe
access for Lucketts area residents. (Turn lanes stack traffic
without facilitating access, and are used as illegal passing
lanes). Citizens also called for use of Federal Highway
Administration “context-sensitive” designs, especially given
the road’s Virginia Byway status, bisecting the Catoctin Rural
Historic District, and part of the JTHG corridor.
These concerns resulted in a 90-day pause in the
construction schedule last spring, while a “validation study”
was conducted at the request of Secretary Kasprowicz, as part
of the land use-transportation coordination the Governor has
advocated for better planning in the state, as well as his push
for better accountability from VDOT. As part of the study,
VDOT was required to do turn counts at the intersections
(which had not been done previously, when the turn lanes
were designed), verify car vs. truck percentages (92% car, 8%
truck), measure average speeds (between 50 and 60 mph on a
45-mph road), and characterize accident experience.
The subsequent modifications to the design include
rumble strips at the travelway edge to alert wandering drivers,
with 2 feet of paved shoulder beyond. Beyond the paved
shoulder will be 8 feet of stabilized turf (a deep bed of gravel
topped with two inches of soil, which will be seeded.) The
stabilized shoulder will support tractor trailers, and can be
used as a breakdown area and to ease past accidents in the
roadway, but its appearance discourages use as an illegal
passing lane.
Other modifications include curb and gutter instead
of shoulders at several intersections to discourage use of
shoulders as illegal passing lanes.
Lack of facilitated access for area residents and
remaining design elements that facilitate illegal passing and
speeding are continuing concerns with the present design.
If you would like more details about this upcoming
tour, please contact me.
Other Catoctin Coalition documents
• “Route 15 North Needs a Forward-Looking, Modern
Redesign,” January 2007.

4. • “VDOT’s U.S. 15/Limestone School and Montresor Road
Plan: Destructive Solution for Few Turns,” October 23,
2005.
• “Rear Ending, Recklessness Dominate Accident Statistics on
Virginia Byway,” May 25, 2005.
• “VDOT’s U.S. 15/New Valley Church Road Plan: More
Road, Less Access and Safety,” February 29, 2005.
• “Safety and Access on Route 15 north of Leesburg,”
September 22, 2004.
• “Notes from Route 15 North Safety Projects Status
Meeting,” April 19, 2004.
• “New Safety Data Discredit VDOT’s Factual Basis for
Reconstruction of U.S. Route 15 North in Loudoun County,
Virginia,” James Lucier, July 18, 2003.
Further resources
• When Main Street is a State Highway, Maryland Highway
Administration, http://www.sha.state.md.us/businessWith
SHA/projects/ohd/Mainstreet/mainstreet.asp
• Virginia Byways. http://www.virginiadot.org/programs/
prog-byways.asp
• “Route 15 Safety Assessment,” VDOT, February 2007
(ppt).
• “Route 15 Corridor Safety Study: Summary of Crash
History and Traffic Data,” VDOT, April 2006.
• “Route 15 Safety Study, North Segment,” VDOT, 1998.
Compiled by Martha Polkey, Coordinator
The Catoctin Coalition
mp@budiansky.com