Loudon Gravel

[Dirt]

Paving roads is one of the biggest wastes of money… especially in Loudoun County.

[jabberwocky]

I’d guess that much of the gravel roads out there are on borrowed time, since Loudoun is one of the fastest growing counties in america (and one of, if not the, wealthiest). As the metro phase 2 expands out into Loudoun and the county expands more and more, mostly with suburban commuters from places where everything is paved, the calls to pave roads is only going to grow. And increased traffic is going to put a lot of stress on those gravel roads.

Guess we will see.

[mstone]

Two thoughts:

First, good roads were a result of 19th century lobbying by cyclists–it’s easy to romanticize lousy gravel roads if their use is entirely optional, but less so if you have no choice but to use them.

Second, if loudoun wanted to keep its gravel roads, it should have instituted a smart growth policy and should not keep pushing for superhighways to D.C. — where, exactly, do they think those cars are going? The simple reality is that the volume of traffic on many of those roads is higher than gravel can sustain. (Engineering guidelines put the max on a gravel road at a few hundred cars per day.) Paving those roads will require huge amounts of new right-of-way, alter road alignments, kill quite a few mature trees, and permanently alter the county — but that was the inevitable result of allowing development to so greatly outpace infrastructure and planning. It doesn’t seem like there’s any desire to fix the underlying problems, just a desire to wave a wand and address the road problem without any impact.

[jabberwocky]

Don’t get me started on Loudouns growth policies (specifically, their utter lack of one). I’m an architect who has been doing work on Loudoun for 10 years now. They let anything fly out there. Their planning department is still stuck in an early 90s mindset.

But yeah, mstone nailed it: its easy to talk about how great gravel roads are when you can go out and ride them for pleasure on weekends. When you live off one and have to drive it every day, the allure fades. As the county builds up (and it will) the call to widen and pave them will only increase.

[mikoglaces]

@jabberwocky 77538 wrote:

I’d guess that much of the gravel roads out there are on borrowed time, since Loudoun is one of the fastest growing counties in america

Guess we will see.

Fortunately for gravel grinders, the article notes that many people want to keep the roads unpaved.

[jabberwocky]

@mikoglaces 77543 wrote:

Fortunately for gravel grinders, the article notes that many people want to keep the roads unpaved.

The people who have lived there a long time. Give it 10 years and those people will be massively outnumbered. The tipping point will probably be when the increased traffic causes the existing roads to deteriorate to the point that even long time residents grow weary of it.

The real issue is that Loudoun has basically no long-term growth plan. Which means development happens wherever; it isn’t clustered around existing infrastructure. Drive around the county and look at where some of the large developments are happening; there is no consideration of the capacity of adjacent roads. Most of the closer in counties (Fairfax, Montgomery, etc) long ago learned to offload infrastructure improvements to developers. Loudoun hasn’t learned that lesson.

The bottom line is that many of those quaint little gravel roads are only going to see increased traffic as time goes on, and eventually will be far beyond their capacity.

[Raymo853]

I see the power of house developers as an additional variable. They will pressure Richmond to force Loundon country to pave the roads so they can sell million dollar triple wide/double highs to people that think sq-ft is the only measure of a house’s value.

[mikoglaces]

@Raymo853 77587 wrote:

I see the power of house developers as an additional variable. They will pressure Richmond to force Loundon country to pave the roads so they can sell million dollar triple wide/double highs to people that think sq-ft is the only measure of a house’s value.

On my first gravel grinder in Loudon some years ago, I was amazed to be riding on rutted dirt roads past huge houses, being passed by large SUVs. I couldn’t believe that people with that kind of money would live on dirt roads.

[jabberwocky]

@Raymo853 77587 wrote:

I see the power of house developers as an additional variable. They will pressure Richmond to force Loundon country to pave the roads so they can sell million dollar triple wide/double highs to people that think sq-ft is the only measure of a house’s value.

Honestly, I work with a fair number of developers who build in Loudoun, and by and large they simply don’t care. People buy the houses regardless. Gravel roads don’t hurt the curb appeal (in fact, it might seem nice and quaint when people are house shopping), which is primarily what they want. The pressure is going to be from the people who buy the houses thinking a nice development off a gravel road feels quaint and rural but then have to live with the reality of it for a few years (or people who are ok with it when the road has little traffic and is nicely maintained, but a few years later find that same road dealing with 10 times the traffic and inadequate maintenance).

[lordofthemark]

@jabberwocky 77615 wrote:

Honestly, I work with a fair number of developers who build in Loudoun, and by and large they simply don’t care. People buy the houses regardless. Gravel roads don’t hurt the curb appeal (in fact, it might seem nice and quaint when people are house shopping), which is primarily what they want. The pressure is going to be from the people who buy the houses thinking a nice development off a gravel road feels quaint and rural but then have to live with the reality of it for a few years (or people who are ok with it when the road has little traffic and is nicely maintained, but a few years later find that same road dealing with 10 times the traffic and inadequate maintenance).

actually Loudoun sort of does have a growth plan. There are three large zones – the suburban zone in eastern Loudoun, the rural zone in western loudoun (west of rte 15) and the transitional zone (a narrow strip just east of rte 15 and south of Leesburg, IIUC). Within the eastern suburban zone there are three Transit Oriented Development zones – at the two future silver line stations, and at Dulles Town Center.

Now there are plenty of imperfections – until the last few years I don’t think they were very strict with the rural zone, whats allowed in the rural zone may be denser than what some of us would consider rural – they have given in to developers a lot in the transitional zone – and the DTC TOD zone seems somewhat lacking in transit. And of course the amount of development in the suburban zone arguably has undermined making the region denser and less sprawly. BUT – it does not seem at all impossible that the rural areas where the gravel roads are will stay essentially rural. By keeping them gravel they reduce costs, and reduce the loss of impervious surface that impacts water run off.

Here’s another take – http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/21794/virginias-unpaved-roads-bill-acknowledges-that-its-not-all-about-cars/

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