VDOT: New streets must have connectors

Newly built streets must connect directly to other neighborhoods, or else state government won’t maintain them, Virginia transportation officials told land developers and planning officials Monday.

Narrower streets, more sidewalks and less stormwater runoff also are part of the changes developers are being asked to make.

In the first of several meetings to be held around the state, three Department of Transportation officials explained new rules for developers that go into effect July 1.

The regulations don’t eliminate cul-de-sacs, “no matter what you may have read in some local papers,” said Nick Donohue, assistant secretary of transportation for VDOT’s Richmond office.

But the regulations clearly would reduce the number of cul-de-sacs in new developments.

In a back corner of many subdivisions, builders would have to construct a road that ends at the development’s property line. The paved segment would replace many cul-de-sacs under current developers’ practices.

Called a stub-out, the piece of road would wait, unused perhaps for years, until the adjoining property is developed and a street from a new residential or commercial project is connected to it.

The rule’s goal is to provide alternate routes that would keep some vehicles off of increasingly congested traffic arteries, said Ken King, a VDOT operations director for Western Virginia.

Falling highway revenues won’t allow many roads to be widened, King said.

The regulations have been worked out during the two years since the General Assembly approved a land-use approach sought by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. The Commonwealth Transportation Board has approved the rules.

The requirement for connecting new neighborhoods isn’t ironclad, because terrain may not allow a backstreet connection to every site, said Rob Hofrichter, an administrator with VDOT’s maintenance division.

Steep grades on mountainous sites could justify an exemption from the requirement, Hofrichter said, and in other areas a river or body of water might preclude a connection.

Steve Strauss, of Roanoke County, asked if he would be required to provide a connecting stub-out to an adjoining, undeveloped parcel that had no access to a highway.

Yes, said Hofrichter. If the undeveloped parcel’s owner were to improve the property, the owner would be required to create its own access to a highway. That owner also would have to build a connection to the stub-out Strauss would have built.

The regulations seek to always have at least two routes in and out of a neighborhood, Hofrichter said.

Strauss, one of the Roanoke Valley’s most active developers, said after the meeting that he didn’t yet understand the new requirements and came to the meeting to start learning about them.

“It will evolve over time,” said Strauss, who has occasionally tested regulations in court.

“What they are doing, I think, is good,” he said.