A road project critical for HCA’s hospital

When Silver Companies got approval for a rezoning of 182 acres for three commercial pods and an office complex south of U.S. 17 and east of the interstate, they promised to build a bridge over the interstate and extend Spotsylvania Parkway through the hospital to Hospital Boulevard that will connect with U.S. 17 and Overview Drive. HCA spokesmen say this road work is very important for the hospital they expect to be very busy.

So on Feb. 10, supervisors met in closed session with Silver Cos. officials to look at options to pay for the $15.5 million road project. They exited the private meeting with no comment. But, from what I gather from the closed session agenda, they discussed alternative ways—namely a tax service district—to pay for the road work. A story is running tomorrow explaining what might happen to get that road work finished—when the hospital opens. If for some reason the work is not done, you can expect some serious traffic control problems for people coming and going to the hospital. That’s been said from the beginning. The hospital expects to open in early 2010.

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/spotsygovt/2009/02/23/a-road-project-critical-for-hcas-hospital/

lgross

this is an excellent example of why we cannot
afford to have a hands-off approach to planning.

The county must – plan. They must understand
the consequences of land-use decisions – and
they must embrace responsibility for the
adequacy of the roads to serve development.

In years past – most of the folks on the PC and
the BOS took a “we’ll do the land-use decisions
and VDOT will do the roads” approach…

.. which was a failure – because the left hand and
right hand were waving independently .. and the
costs associated with irresponsible decision-
making resulted in road costs that far exceeded
VDOT’s finances.

Now – we know – if you want development or
intend to accept it – you need to also assume
responsibility for the roads to serve it.
lgross

Even a 2% growth rate .. will require additional
infrastructure.

Otherwise.. what we do is a 2% reduction in level-
of-service …. on roads that are already near the
margins on levels-of-service.

It’s not the growth rate per se.

Instead – it’s what kind of infrastructure planning
is done in concert with ANY given growth rate.

Obviously a higher growth rate will accelerate the
infrastructure issues if nothing is done about the
infrastructure…

but even a low growth rate will end up with the
same problems – if there is no effective plan for
infrastructure.

“Effective” is defined as not lines on a map in
the Comp Plan but a funded CIP much like a
funded CIP for water/sewer.

If we do not have funded CIPs for roads – it
really doesn’t matter what the growth rate is –
because it still ends up bad.

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A road project critical for HCA’s hospital