Officials Break Ground for New Interchange at Route 234 and Brentsville Road

Improvements at Route 234 and Brentsville Road have been envisioned for many years. Land was purchased around the intersection in the 1990s with an eye on future improvements. Now, with funding from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, or NVTA, a new interchange will include bridges, ramps and pedestrian facilities to make traffic flow better for everyone.

“NVTA has fully funded this project to the tune of $55 million as part of their FY 2018 to FY 2023 Six Year program,” Prince William County Chair at-Large Ann Wheeler said at a recent groundbreaking ceremony for the Route 243 and Brentsville Road Interchange Project. “The Route 234 corridor is a vital corridor in Prince William County and the Northern Virginia region, and this section of the corridor carries almost 40,000 vehicles daily. This project is also an integral part of a larger mobility plan in the western end of Prince William County along the Route 234 corridor.”

See a video of the groundbreaking ceremony here.

The Prince William County Department of Transportation will oversee the design-build project that is expected to be completed in two years. Design-build means that design and construction on the project will proceed in tandem so that the project can be completed more quickly.

The project came to the County as an unsolicited bid, meaning that Wagman Heavy Civil, Inc. put in an offer to build the interchange. Without the unsolicited bid, and NVTA funding, the project might not have started for some years to come. Wagman will work with Rinker Design Associates as a design-build team along with the Virginia Department of Transportation as the project proceeds.

NVTA determined that the project was important to the corridor. “It’s unusual that NVTA will fund an entire project. The fact that we did [shows] how important this project is, not just for Prince William County, but for the entire region,” said NVTA Chair Phyllis J. Randall

Improvement to the intersection will ease traffic so people will spend less time in their cars. “Ultimately, this project is designed to reduce congestion [and] bottlenecks at Route 234 and Brentsville by allowing free-flow traffic for the most congested movements,” Wheeler said. “It will also include the multi-modal transportation network within the Coles District … through the construction of shared-use paths for pedestrians and cyclists in and out of the interchange.”

For more information visit www.pwcgov.org.