Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The closing is from the Lafayette Boulevard entrance to the Lansdowne exit.
Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military Park, said the north end of Lee Drive from Lansdowne to Lafayette Boulevard will be closed Monday and Tuesday for chip and seal again. Smith said the redo is at the expense of the contractor. Earlier this year, the National Park Service resurfaced the road with two coats of chip seal, a layer of tar topped with a layer of gravel. Smith said the upper layer of chip seal did not bond properly because traffic was allowed on the road too soon. "So the National Park Service has asked the contractor to replace it with a new coat of chip seal, at his own expense, using a finer grade of gravel. Any gravel that does not adhere to the tar after …
Thursday, July 19, 2012
The owner avoided serious injury when she went to get a bag she left near a trail and the tree fell on her vehicle.
Cynthia Sam of Spotsylvania County said she is thanking God right now because she was seconds away from getting seriously injured when a massive oak tree fell on her vehicle on Lee Drive at the Fredericksburg Battlefield. She said she was walking on a trail with her dog, Neptune, when she was about to get inside her black Mercedes. But she had remembered she left a bag near the trail. She said she went to get the bag and heard a loud crash. A thick trunk from the tree crashed through the driver's side door and landed on the front seat where she would have been sitting. "If I hadn't gone back to get a bag I would have been in the car," she said. "When I came back out, I saw what happened and I literally fell to my knees and thanked God." …
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Can the National Park Service and Virginia Paving get all of the excess gravel off of Lee Drive by June 9? Time will tell. But the chief ranger said speeding has dropped on Lee Drive since the chip-and-seal was added.
The National Park Service has asked Virginia Paving to remove the loose gravel on Lee Drive before the Cabot Cheese Community Tour comes here on June 9. National Park Service supervisors, Virginia Paving, subcontractors, and park staff met Wednesday morning to discuss the paving project on Lee Drive, said Russ Smith, the superintendent of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. None at the meeting expected the project to turn controversial, but it has upset local cyclists, who said the gravel is unsafe and difficult to ride on. This week, the Fredericksburg Cyclists Club created a petition that has more than 300 signatures already. The petition is online based and Olde Towne Bicycles had a paper petition. Smith provided…
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The gravel on Lee Drive has upset bicyclists and now the Fredericksburg Cyclists Club is trying to get people to sign a petition asking the Park Service to remove it from the popular exercise route.
The Fredericksburg Cyclists Club has created an online petition to try to persuade the National Park Service to remove the gravel it recently dropped on Lee Drive that they believe causes safety and riding problems. The petition reads that Lee Drive in the Fredericksburg Battlefield is a major attraction for tourists and local residents who use it to walk, jog, bicycle, drive or reflect on the Civil War. The group's petition goes on to say that Lee Drive is part of the East Coast Greenway, a federally designated Millennium Trail that is also part of the U.S. Bike Route 1 interstate route. But, "the National Park Service, in violation of its own guiding principles, failed to consult the local community before recently applying asphalt and …
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Cyclists say the gravel makes it much harder to use the pathway.
Area cyclists believe the gravel that has recently been dropped on Lee Drive makes it harder to use the path and could even create safety hazards. Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military Park, said the chip and seal surface on Lee Drive is a safety measure to slow down traffic. The entire length of Lee Drive will get the treatment and the contractor, Virginia Paving, is about 80-percent finished, Smith said. "The excess gravel will compact over the next few weeks," he said in an email today. "Bicycles should have no problem using the drive, but the surface will be rougher so speed will be discouraged." The Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military…
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Resurfacing work on Lee Drive is expected to cause slight delays to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists over the next two months.
The oldest battlefield tour road in Fredericksburg is set to get a fresh surface. Paving operations on Lee Drive within the Fredericksburg Battlefield will intermittently affect travel along the entire length of the road beginning Monday, November 7. The work will commence at Prospect Hill on the south end of South Lee Drive before moving north up the road. The work is expected to take two months to finish. North Lee Drive, perhaps the most heavily trafficked section of the road, is expected to begin around December 1 and finish by January 15. Weather could affect the pace of the work, and the schedule could change slightly, say National Park Service officials in a press release announcing the work. Road closures are not anticipated, but …
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Lee Dr & Lafayette Blvd, Fredericksburg, VA
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Susan
1:20 pm on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Last week, I ordered a new hybrid to use on the current Park road surface because my road bike is uncomfortable/unsafe there. If my new $900 hybrid won't work on this latest surface, I'm sending the bike bill to the Park Service! Furthermore, I checked out the Park today, and there is still a stack of limbs at the entrance that have remained there for weeks. In addition, the huge, rotten tree … more ›