Planning Commission Receives Final Downtown Engineering Study, Review and Public Feedback Period Launched
Existing one-way traffic pattern serves a need that no longer exists, staff and commissioners say.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The one-way traffic patterns instituted in downtown Fredericksburg in the 1960s still work for the intended purpose of moving a high volume of traffic through the city quickly.
But that’s not what downtown needs anymore, Fredericksburg planning staff and Planning Commission members said Wednesday.
“The need to move the region’s traffic through the city has dissipated [with the construction of U.S. 1 bypass and the Blue and Gray Parkway] but [the old traffic pattern is] still in place, and that has caused ancillary problems with speed and safety concerns,” said Mike Craig, director of the city’s community planning and building department, at Wednesday’s meeting of the Planning Commission.
Commissioner Mary-Margaret Marshall said there are going to be “growing pains” as a result of implementing a new traffic pattern, but that “the most important thing people need to remember is that we’re doing [this] for safety purposes.”
“Things have changed a lot since the 1960s, and we can either do nothing, or we can do something that could be better,” Marshall said.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Planning Commission received the final report from the Downtown Traffic Engineering Study conducted by the Timmons Group at the city’s request. A period of “review and public feedback” will officially begin at the November 12 Planning Commission meeting, which will be followed by a community meeting on November 13.
The study conducted a crash analysis of the downtown area using crash data from the Virginia Department of Transportation from January 2020 through December 2024. There have been 328 in the study area during that time frame—83 resulting in serious or minor injury, 106 in possible injury, and 139 in property damage.
Angle crashes—in which vehicles hit each other at or near right angles—were the most common crash type. The most accidents occurred where William Street intersects with Sophia, Caroline, and Prince Edward streets; at the intersection of Caroline and Amelia streets; and at the intersection of Caroline Street and Lafayette Boulevard.
Four percent of all crashes involved pedestrians, but these crashes made up 22% of all crashes that resulted in serious injuries.
The report notes that “analysis of the speed data does not show an obvious pattern of speeding in the study area.”
The report recommends that Princess Anne Street should be converted to two-way travel from Herndon to Amelia streets, and that Caroline Street be converted to two-way travel from Pitt to Amelia.
It recommends that William Street be converted to two-way from Washington Avenue to Sophia Street, and that Amelia Street be converted to two-way from Washington Avenue to Caroline Street.
In the Darbytown neighborhood, the report recommends that Princess Anne Street from Lafayette Boulevard to Dixon Street be converted to two-way. Dixon between Princess Anne and Caroline should also become two-way. Frederick and Elizabeth streets should be converted to one-way eastbound and westbound travel lanes, respectively, “due to the narrowness of the roads in this sub-area.”
The report recommends the addition of two-way bicycle lanes along Princess Anne Street from Herndon to Pitt streets; along Sophia Street; and along Caroline Street from Frederick to Dixon streets, to match VDOT’s plans for the Dixon Park Connector Trail.
Prince Edward Street is recommended to become a Bicycle Boulevard—“a low-stress shared roadway bicycle facility, designed to offer priority for bicyclists operating within a roadway shared with motor vehicle traffic,” according to the Federal Highway Administration. To facilitate this, the intersection of Prince Edward and Canal Street would be converted to a mini roundabout, there would be a raised crosswalk at the trail crossing on Fall Hill Avenue, and there would be curb extensions and high-visibility crosswalks at “key intersections.”
The report notes that staff recommended Prince Edward as a potential bicycle boulevard because “traffic volumes and speeds are relatively low, and it connects major downtown destinations to the south and the Rappahannock Heritage River Trail to the north.”
The report includes preliminary cost estimates for different aspects of the recommendations. The William/Amelia improvements are estimated to cost $3.1 million; the Sophia/Pitt/Caroline bike lanes to cost $1.4 million; the Caroline/Princess Anne improvements $3.3 million; and the Prince Edward bicycle boulevard conversation $895,000.
In community meetings and in a public survey, residents have raised concerns about the impact of converting downtown streets to two-way on parking and on trucks making deliveries to downtown businesses.
The report doesn’t recommend any changes to existing on-street parking, and it proposes creating three new loading zones for delivery trucks at 203, 300, and 403 William Street.
Commissioners asked that further discussion about the recommendations include more details about how parking inventory is to be preserved and about how delivery trucks will navigate the changes.
“These are the things we’re going to have to get down to granularity on,” Planning Commission Chair David Durham said.
Marshall said discussions need to “zero in on areas most impacted.”
But she said the existing traffic pattern “gets traffic out of here so fast, it’s not even funny, which has become a pubic safety issue.”
“I would beg the general public to work with us and be patient,” she said. “This is being done to make the city a better place, not just to walk, to bike, and to drive, but to be.”
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Will these alleged improvements be a true value to citizens in $$$ and safety at this time?