LCP / Ryan Road Configuration

Does anyone know what the new configuration of LCP/Ryan Road from the Greenway to Brambleton will be? They have created two X crossovers in the median this last week (one along LCP before it hits Ryan Rd and one after it becomes Ryan Rd. closer to Clairborne) that will most likely be tied into the opening of the LCP extension down towards Stone Hill MS and then beyond. I have seen some of the websites for new developments along this route that show in general the road alignment, but does anyone know the timeline of immediate changes?

 

The master plan is to have LCP continue to 606 by the airport. Ryan will be intersecting but it will not be continuous as it is now with LCP. Looks like they are slowly making the conversion.

Lee j

 

Where can we go to look up all these future road plans for this area? I'm starting a new job where I'll be commuting, and I'd like to know what impact the road changes around here will have. Just not sure what the good sites are for this info... like, maps. Maps would rock.

Thanks,
- A

 

Route-28:
http://www.28freeway.com/progressupdate.html

 

Folks:

This is not my area of responsibility, but I have been inquiring about it the last few weeks because I noticed the first week of school how difficult it is for buses and parents who are going to the new Stone Hill MS and Rosa Lee Carter ES to make the left turn off of Ryan Road onto Claiborne against morning traffic going east. According to my contacts in the county government, they have been in touch with the builder of the Loudoun Valley Estates community who is responsible for this, and they say they have received the VDOT permit and, as noted by one poster, the contractor has started at least some of the work necessary to reconfigure the Ryan Road/Loudoun County Parkway intersection. The current schedule calls for it to be paved in November (which could always slip), and the next issue is when the signal will be installed and the reconfigured interesection opened. The warrant has been reportedly been approved and the design has been submitted, but in the words of county staff, "it could take a while to work through the VDOT process." My experience has been that it takes a while to work through anything with VDOT, so we'll have to see how this goes.

Robert

Robert DuPree
Chairman & Dulles District Representative
Loudoun County School Board

 

Mr. DuPree,
Do you have any information on whether a bridge linking Loudoun Valley Estates III (located off 606) to the Stone Hill MS/Rosa Lee Carter ES area will be built? I thought I remembered one being pointed out during the boundary meetings last year. Thanks.

 

Bleh, redacted.

 

Maeve:

Thanks for the followup. Again, while not my area of direct responsibility these days, I am familiar with the Countywide Transportation Plan, which has never shown a connector road (collector road in transportation terms) through that neighborhood to link it with Loudoun Valley Estates II and Brambleton, and we have never assumed one. The only planned connections from 606 through to Loudoun County Parkway are to the north and south of Loudoun Valley Estates III. I also don't believe any of LVE III's neighborhood streets were designed or built to be collector roads (I think you would need medians, wider roads/more lanes, no driveways directly assessing a collector road, etc.). If you have any questions and want to discuss this further, send me an email at rfdupree@aol.com.

Also, for the other poster who asked about the future road network, here is one link to a draft I found which is part of the county's current effort to update the CTP (it also shows the two planned connections I referenced above): http://www.loudounctp.com/documents/CTP Roads Countywide Map August-07.pdf

Robert

Robert DuPree
Chairman & Dulles District Representative
Loudoun County School Board

 

I will add that there is no collector rd even proposed next to the toll road on the south side to 606. Without it moorefield and the other urban developments will create a traffic nightmare that will make waxpool look like nothing. Just common sense to get past the north side of the airport. Shellhorne also needs to connect to the sterling blvd interchange not the spaghetti nightmare of roads now proposed with to many lights and turns on the north side of the airport. Right now the shellhorne connection is doable through the flex buildings. But if the county transportation plan is not changed to reflect that that opportunity will be lost. Hopefully these flex developers are not going to dictate to our supervisors how Loudoun will development for the flex builders own personal greed and ruin opportunities for the good neighbor developments. We are at a crossroads right now for the direction these developments will take.

On another note Mr Dupree I am very disappointed by the article in the Washington Post that school building in the county is taking a cookie cutter approach to design of our schools. Again this is a lost opportunity for Loudoun to be innovated in school design as many other school districts in this country are now doing. It is a real shame just to have our children have a desk we sacrifice some real innovations in school design which would enhance the children's learning environment. 20 years from now I bet this will be looked back on as a major blunder and lost opportunities for the children of Loudoun. Very very sad that run away development for the sake of development is hurting the school system and the road system. Personally I would like to see the growth of this county slow to a crawl so the good neighbor developers with deep pockets can correct the wrongs of the last many years. Fill this county up with junk developments as we are doing now and we will see many more business failures from the local mom and pops.

Lee j

 

Lee-
Just curious...have you been in many Loudoun school buildings? Have you been in Briar Woods? My jaw hit the floor when I walked in there. Have you/are you familiar with the Smart Boards? Before you condemn, I suggest you investigate. If you have, please share some SPECIFICS instead of your usual gloom-and-doom broadbrushing of the issue.

And before you start, we all know....it's those darn flex buildings fault!!

 

Cliff yes I have been in some of the new schools and my kids went to Broadrun High School.

I will post some pictures and sites of some innovative school designs. Nothing wrong with the schools as built.

My only thought was because I am always looking at the cutting edge of design and transportation, and I believe in less talk and study and more action. Example what genius came up with those extremely dangerous merge acceleration lanes onto waxpool as talked about in another thread to the point they had to add a light to the wegmans one. Design is not an evening hobby to me this is what I do for a living and have been doing it for over 30 years and have won many awards for what I do and get paid very well for it and people mostly retain me for my creativity and solutions to sometimes complex problems.

Just watch and learn from what happens to the flex projects across the street from me. We are about to do an end run around Barbara and Steven Snow as I feel we are just getting lip service there no real help. No problem I just thought some real help from the people in power would do some good. So far nothing.

People can study things to death or make it happen as we do in private business at a much faster pace.

Most people see things as they are and say fine.
The few real innovators see things that are not there and should be and say why not???

Just a matter of perspective. Some people love to call peoples visions as doom and gloom. Others see it as pushing the envelope to make things even better. Isn't that what a good school and education is supposed to teach our children, to think outside the box and make it happen quickly using innovation and less dependence on government. Innovation rarely comes from government and there studies, it comes mostly from the private sector that says why not, and lets make it happen.

The real doom and gloom people are the people that don't push for better and better.

Design and solutions by committee usually are long drawn out inferior compromises. Private industy when allowed to do their thing can do it better and faster then any design by a government sponsored committee.

Lee j

 

Robert, the question of the bridge at LVE II came up at the Mercer meeting for the CTP, as there are folks who can see Rosa Lee Carter from their house, and not go directly there. According to Bob Klancher, who recalled working on LVE II, the bridge had indeed been discussed, but was opposed by existing residents.

The Brambleton cases currently in committee at the BoS finish the LoCo Pkway up there, and the LVE II proffers required the road to be ready as soon as Brambleton starts their piece--apparently Toll takes Brambleton's paving proffers seriously!

 

Lee, you can call it the runaround if you like, but do remember those flex buildings are BY RIGHT, operative word RIGHT under existing law in the state of VA, which could be why they don't return calls to the county. I've assigned a drop dead date on reply to my first efforts, then I go to phase 2. As I have told you, we may get absolutely nowhere. My goal remains to get people in a room to talk. Optimistic results may end up confined to screening IF we get people in a room to talk, and they don't HAVE to do squat. If you want to blame Steve for me not getting quick results, go right ahead, but as I've told you, there is no Texas solution here.

 

This is the kind of things that can be avoided if this county would put together 3d mapping with fly thru's of this county and then everyone can see how any proposed project effects anyone of us just as if you were really driving or walking or looking from any distance or angle of any proposed and existing developments.

Static colorful renderings just don't do that.

It is time with all this private developer money here that this not done immediately. I can tell you without these new mapping tools this kind of people are going to get madder and madder when a development is built that does not blend in and become a good neighbor and that includes schools as we see here that are not innovative in design or placement on the site. With all the so mcalled money here this county needs to get out of the dark ages and move into the latest technology that can help make it a win win for any kind of development whether it is a school or a seven eleven. If we can't then I say stop all growth and development until we can.

Of course Cliff will call this doom and gloom I call it a wake up call.

Lee j

 

Barbara it is not just Texas the the government wheels spin sometimes very very slowly too slowly and when you have an election year and you're planning commissioner and county supervisor is having a hard time setting up a meeting with developers and their donations mostly come from developers. Well put it this way just makes you wonder.

We do have plan B that we don't want to use yet, but plan B is going to make this all very public. As you can see Barbara just from your previous post people are starting to get upset from what they see from their homes everywhere and with todays technology and good planning and design that should not be happening.

Poor Cliff just lost his gym and money from it because they are closing in that flex project. Many business's have left that project and it is getting more empty by the day. Believe the design and location of these flex buildings whether you want to believe it or not have a lot to do with failures leading to the entire projects failure possibly. The day a developer thought they could just build anything anywhere out here and it becomes an instant money maker is not true anymore, especially when it is on murder dr. Name change now will not erase the folk lore that has grown up with that name. Much damage has been done and the new developer is on the same street. I really am beginning to believe these properties are haunted or possessed I do believe in universal order where if you do a good neighbor development good things happen to all involved and of course the opposite happens when you don't, as we see it happening in this flex project.

Interesting how the universe will take care of itself if enough people become unhappy.

Lee j

 

Mr DuPree just think about it, a loudoun school project working in conjunction with the universities could be an exciting project to map Loudoun in 3d and it's existing buildings with flythru's so the public can understand what future development will do especially visually .

See is this not something our students could do that would also have a positive effect on future development of this county. Instead of this hodgepodge of development that is starting to creep into our lives.

Mr DuPree I am sure the schools of architecture in vriginia and the dc area and the high tech companies would love to assist your students. Further think of the good that can come out of this. Certainly a win win and a visual path for the bad neighbor developers to follow.

Lee j

Lee j

 

Although this thread has gone on to other subjects (which I will stay out of), I did want to clarify the misperception from a phrase in a recent article that said Loudoun County Public Schools are not energy efficient. As was reported at a board meeting last spring, we have accumulated some $21 million in cost avoidance since instituting an energy management program in the 1990s (it was reported we were ranked third in the nation in Green Power energy cost avoidance). Also, all our new facilities are controlled by energy management systems to optimize HVAC and lighting efficiencies.

With regard to our designs, our protyptical designs save us time and money - which is critical when we are building an average of three schools every year. We modify our designs as warranted, and we are going to also be using a two-story elementary school and middle school design in the near future. But with 3,500 new students in Loudoun this year (that's about equal to a high school, middle school and elementary school), and with 15,000 new students projected over the next five years, we can't afford to fall behind on our building schedule, or waste taxpayer money on drastically changing designs every time we build a new school.

Robert

Robert DuPree
Chairman & Dulles District Representative
Loudoun County School Board

 

Lee-
My comment about your "doom and gloom" isn't that I necessarily disagree with you.
You are just hopelessly naive about how things work. You mention endlessly all your high-powered, world famous, gods of the development industry, yet you seem to accomplish nothing but remind us of your high powered, highly influential leaders of the free world.
You fixate on things like a pit bull on raw meat...like Red Rum Drive. Nobody even appeared to notice the name until a small article about it appeared in the paper three years later. Everybody else has already forgotten it...except you. The flex buildings there that you condemn have been leased out for years. Obviously enough of a success that they built two more.
Maybe if they didn't improperly REZONE the property your neighborhood is in from commercial to residential, you wouldn't have to look at all the commercial property that still surrounds you.
We'd like to hear more about what you're DOING, rather than blather endlessly in multiple threads, about the same thing...evil flex buildings and your high-powered, highly influential gods of the free world and development industry close personal friends.
Feel free to carry on.

 

Smart move!

 

Cliff the only mistakes that are made in development are by the bad neighbor developers and they are not just on waxpool. BTW those two new buildings have been empty for a long long time and they stopped construction on the others in the middle of site work a long time ago. Companies such as the large electrical contractor and your Gym have left that development as others have. Not a good sign.

Want to meet a few of these high powered developers lawyers and real estate people. No problem there will be a party hosted by a friend and client of mine this sat at 3pm. You and your wife can certainly attend with Dalyn and I, just let me know my good buddy. You will see these people are certainly not fantasies. ha ha ha ha ha The home where this barbecue is to be held was designed by me and my entire home would fit in their garage including sharse's ref. sorry private joke ha ha ha ha ha

I am just doing my best to make this county even a better place to live and one way is to make people aware through forums such as these a little insight what can be done and how we should learn from the past and especially the present mistakes.

Lee j