Residents review plans for Frontier Drive

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: May 21, 2008

Plans to reconfigure Frontier Drive from Route 11 in Staunton to Route 250 in Augusta County are “very, very conceptual” at this point, according to a Virginia Department of Transportation official.
Residents had the opportunity Wednesday to review three alternatives as part of the Frontier Drive Improvement Study during a public meeting at the Augusta County Government Center in Verona. Those alternatives include widening the road, making intersection improvements and possibly moving parts of the road.
Linking two commercial areas, the overburdened two-lane road “hasn’t reached a breaking point, but it’s very near to that, particularly at the intersections,” VDOT District Assistant Planner Terry Short told NBC29.
Short, who also serves on Waynesboro’s Planning Commission, said the only way the “broad vision” of the project would come to fruition anytime soon is through a public-private partnership – with the work being done gradually – due to the lack of money available.
With an estimated 7,700 vehicles currently using the road, VDOT projects its traffic to double in the next 20 years.
“One of the outcomes of this project – it isn’t just about roads, it isn’t just about shared use paths [or] bike accommodations,” Short said. “It’s about land use and currently there are a variety of different land uses, some intense, some not so intense. And I think it’s given both the county and the city an opportunity to kind of reflect on that ...”
and to have a greater appreciation of what the potential impacts of the existing zoning that’s out there right now, what that could have to this corridor.”