The new construction of a roundabout on Lee Highway and Blackwell Road is causing commuting issues for FHS students. The construction has led to more traffic congestion which has led to many problems for students, car or bus, going to and from school. Citizens have also begun to question if the roundabout is a better choice for the community versus the current intersection and have brought up problems such as the roundabout being pedestrian friendly.
The roundabout construction has been planned for the last few years, with the town of Warrenton being awarded about $29 million by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), back in 2023 to be put towards the roundabout’s construction. The award was the largest transportation award that the town had seen. The town first applied for funding back in 2020 but was initially denied. In 2021, VDOT started a study to help rationalize their construction on the intersection, as well as gain public input. The study concluded that there had been 184 crashes at the intersection between 2015 and 2019, most of the crashes being either rear-end or angle crashes.
Fauquier County citizens and students are having some problems with the construction of the roundabout, with many having a problem with the amount of traffic that the construction has created. Most students in Fauquier County schools have experienced the traffic in one way or another, whether it be while they’re on the bus or while they are driving themselves to school. Some citizens of Fauquier County have also posed the question of if the roundabout will be pedestrian-friendly. The current plan includes crosswalks, but many have questioned drivers’ abilities to correctly drive in a roundabout.
Liberty High School (LHS) travel student, Connor Nadeau, has brought up some of the current problems with the construction and the traffic that has sparked from it. Nadeau said, “I’ve been about five to ten minutes late to school many times by traveling by car from LHS to FHS … by bus it’s even worse, it takes about ten minutes just to get out of Warrenton because the traffic is backed up to the light.” Some people, including Nadeau, have begun to question if the construction of the roundabout is even necessary because of the traffic the construction has caused and the lack of knowledge some drivers have when it comes to driving at roundabouts. Nadeau personally believes that the roundabout is not necessary, stating, “People don’t know how to drive properly at roundabouts, and I feel that it would make the traffic worse. Keep the intersection as it is with the light instead of building a roundabout.”
A construction worker on the site, Courtney Nivens, has given some input on the traffic and how it affects the construction. “The only problems caused by the traffic for us is that we have to go out into the road so we have some of the lanes blocked off, and that may make traffic slow a little, but it’s not that bad if the drivers are paying attention to the roadside.” To deal with the lanes being closed, the workers have put up signs and also have flagmen out to help guide the traffic. “As long as you’re paying attention to the road signs and listening to the flagmen out there, then everything will go smoothly,” Nivens said.
The construction hasn’t just caused trouble with traffic, but also with some of the local businesses. Businesses have complained about spatial issues concerning the parking spaces taken up by construction equipment, as well as having some issues with workers not immediately making way for customers to be allowed into business zones. Nivens stated, “Of course there’s the business owners who aren’t too happy with us sometimes when we have to block all of the lanes, slow things down and don’t let customers through right away … we have a lot of equipment and trucks that we need out there, and when we take up that space, some of the business owners aren’t happy because then they don’t have a lot of space, but we do our best to work around everybody.” The problems on site have been working both ways, though; the construction may have an effect on the traffic, but the traffic has also caused problems for the workers on site. Nivens said, “Sometimes when we need to get a truck in or out, we need to stop traffic, and sometimes people don’t quite wanna listen. They’ll tend to go around you and we try to keep everyone safe and keep people from getting hurt, but some people are hard-headed at times, so that’s a mess.”
Currently, there is no confirmed date for when the construction will end, and it is unknown if the roundabout will positively or negatively affect the traffic in Warrenton, but only time will tell. The possibility of construction going on for multiple years is certainly undesirable, and with more construction taking place on Warrenton roads, traffic could potentially get even worse.
The current traffic is caused by the construction blocking off roads, but the drivers not paying attention to all of the signs and flaggers seem to also be playing a big part in the exponential increase in traffic around Warrenton.
