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Virginia Department of Transport (VDOT) officials expect the Route 3 widening project to advance to the design phase this year, another step towards construction that is likely to begin in the spring of 2014.
Lou Hatter, public affairs manager for VDOT's Culpeper district, insisted that safety hazards and increased traffic are among the reasons for widening the road. He said it is a section of the roadway that has had safety issues like head-on collisions. In the past few years, a number of fatal crashes on this road section, including a quadruple car wreck in March 2009, prompted a safety study, some road improvements, and new signage.
The project would widen 5.1 miles of Route 3 and transform a two-lane road to a four-lane divided road from Stevensburg to Lignum, according to a StarExponent.com report.
However, opposition from history preservation activists is building. Clark Hall, president of the Brandy Station Foundation, says that the project would "seriously and adversely" impact Stevensburg's historic resources.
According to Hall, a large portion of the Stevensburg phase of the Civil War's Battle of Brandy Station will be obliterated. A section of Hansbrough's Ridge, a geographic phenomenon unique to Culpeper County, will be further removed, and the entire area will lose its historic integrity.
A meeting will be held shortly to reconcile the two standpoints and examine if an alternative proposal could improve road safety while preserving the region's historic heritage.
