Thursday, February 2, 2012

Weggy's Is On The Way...And So Is The Traffic

Construction Begins on Wegmans Site -
Kingstowne, VA Patch


Will it be nice having a Wegman's nearby? Heck, yeah. Do I want it to be situated within a one mile radius of my home, on a narrow, two-way road that's routinely traffic-choked now with the extra personnel going to and coming from Fort Belvoir because of BRAC? Hell-to-the-NO, or at least not yet.


The lot excavation has indeed begun for the Weggy's at the Telegraph/Beulah intersection, and so, too, has the tree clearing on either side of Telegraph Road leading up to that intersection to (presumably) widen the road from two to four lanes. Don't get me wrong -- Wegman's is an awesome grocery store and it will be great to have one so conveniently located close by, but each store in the Washington, D.C. area draws tremendous crowds from each of the four points of the compass. The Woodbridge Wegman's, located about a 1/2 mile off of I-95 just a bit further south of our area and currently the closest store to us, causes traffic backups ONTO I-95 on a regular basis.

For once, could the designers and county and state officials NOT put the cart before the horse, and think about making the road improvements before new development starts?? The six-mile commute to my job at Fort Belvoir has grown from an average of 20 minutes one-way, to about 30-35 minutes because of too-late road improvements and an explosion of BRAC-related building on the Fort Belvoir reservation. With the Telegraph Road widening project over the next two years and Wegman's going up concurrently, I can see that one-way commute stretching to 45-50 minutes. One-way. To go SIX MILES to work.

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