Sidewalk for Old Bridge Road top priority

By Elisa Glushefski

Published: April 28, 2008

There was no sidewalk along the section of Old Bridge Road where Jewell Hardin was walking on the afternoon of Oct. 16, 2007.

So the 12-year-old walked on the shoulder along the winding, arterial road as she made her trek home from Lake Ridge Middle School.

On that trek, Hardin was struck by a pickup truck that ran off the road. She died a week later.

Since then, a project to install a sidewalk from Titania Way to Cricket Lane has become a top priority for the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Prince William County transportation office, officials said at a recent Occoquan District town hall meeting.

“After the accident, we determined that that was an unfit condition and that we needed to address that,” said Rick Canizales, transportation planning manager for Prince William County.

Supervisor Mike May and officials from the Virginia Department of Transportation and the county transportation office met with Occoquan District residents at a recent town hall meeting to discuss three projects to install sidewalks, crosswalks and pedestrian signals — and to address what one resident called a “traffic emergency” on Old Bridge.

Although it will be a couple more years until anything is on the ground, the three projects will be the final pieces needed to create a continuous network of paths and sidewalks from Va. 123 to Liberia Avenue.

Design is underway for sidewalk and crosswalk installation from Titania Way to Cricket Lane, and construction is expected to be complete by October 2010, said Thomas K. Folse, assistant manager of preliminary engineering at VDOT’s Manassas office.

The state transportation agency also plans to begin design work on crosswalks and a sidewalk from Dillingham Square to Mohican Road in August this year and have construction finished in spring 2012, Folse said.

The cost for each project is estimated between $1.5 and $1.8 million, according to VDOT.

Additionally, the county, using local funds, plans to begin construction on a sidewalk that will go from Mohican Road to Oakwood Road in November and have it finished by July next year.

“This timeline is about as tight as you can get,” May said during the meeting held in the Lake Ridge Middle School cafeteria Wednesday night.

That, he and VDOT officials said, is mostly because of the time it takes to do the design, secure federal funding for the projects and acquire right-of-ways.

Some residents said at the meeting that five-foot wide sidewalks with curb and gutter wouldn’t be enough to stop someone driving 15 or 20 over the 45 mph speed limit on Old Bridge.

Janice Chipman said she and her husband’s greatest concern was for the school children who choose to walk home.

“He just decided he had enough and that’s when he started pushing,” Chipman said of the letter’s her husband sent to May’s office following Hardin’s death. “I think that was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Curbs and sidewalks go a long way to making people notice that people are walking along there. We’re making progress.”

Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger staff writer Elisa Glushefski can be reached at 703-878-8062.