In February, at the Westmoreland Board of Supervisors’ meeting, County Administrator Jim Taylor brought forth a matter involving documents that would update the state highway system. This has been particularly relevant for the County ever since the realignment project for Route 347 came to completion in 2021. The highway system needs to reflect both new and abandoned routes. According to Taylor, while the roadway realignment project started in 2020 and finished the year after, VDOT’s central office required confirmation from the current Board that they supported the previously approved project. This would allow VDOT to finalize the formal changes.

The project became necessary after a large slope failure took place near Route 347, the primary access road into Westmoreland State Park, near the Potomac River. VDOT determined that the costs for repairing the original road’s alignment would have been obscenely prohibitive and figured that it was far less expensive to simply realign the road roughly 100 feet to the south for a far safer location.

All that remained was for the Board to approve the highway changes, from the changing of the route to abandoning the old segment. Vice Chairman Jeff McCormack had some praise to heap upon David Beale, the resident engineer for VDOT.

“I’m so happy with Beale,” McCormack chimed. “He managed to get the speed limit in Cabin Point changed recently and is working on Glebe Harbor. I wasn’t kind to him in recent weeks, and there are times where I need to put my foot in my mouth, but I fully support this effort.”

The Board accepted the changes and authorized the County Administrator to “execute any required documentation and coordination with VDOT.”