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Mining in Barboursville: Safety and Traffic Issues

General Shale proposes to transport material from the Barboursville site to its existing plant in Somerset. The Special Use Permit (SUP) application says that the material would be transported by tractor-trailer and tandem-axle dump trucks, and specifies that the trucks would travel up route 738 (Old Barboursville Road), cross the railroad tracks onto route 20, then turn off onto route 655 to reach the Somerset plant. The SUP application estimates 9,000 to 16,200 trucks per year (during daylight hours) will use this route. This implies 30 to 54 trucks per day, or one truck coming or going approximately every 5 minutes.

This large amount of truck traffic raises several safety issues, especially along Route 738, where the pavement is only 16 feet wide.

Some of the issues are:

  • Congestion
    Route 738 is currently a quiet residential neighborhood. Traffic on this road averages about 220 vehicles per day, according to the 2000 VDOT traffic count. The proposed mining operation would add a large amount of heavy truck traffic to this. The road's pavement is 16 feet wide, and the proposed trucks have a width of about 9 feet -- more than half of the road width.

    Route 738
    A view looking down route 738.

    Clearly, this road width is inadequate for the proposed traffic. General Shale's own application for a mining permit, submitted to the DMME, specifies that the internal roads on the proposed mine site should have a width of 24 feet.

    The intersection with Route 20 is also problematic. Observations have shown that trucks turning right from Route 738 onto Route 20 must cross over into the oncoming lane to complete their turn.

    The proposed mining operation would subject the residents of routes 738, 20 and 655 to greatly increased noise and exhaust emissions. This may also affect those residents who live on Route 738 between the mine site and Route 33. The SUP application specifies that the trucks will travel a route from 738 to 20, but at the February 5th Planning Commission hearing a VDOT representative stated that VDOT had no power to enforce such a route. Given the problems associated with the railroad crossing (see below), drivers may choose to go the other way along 738, turning onto Route 33 to avoid the crossing. This would extend the area of concern to cover the entire length of Route 738.

    Truck drivers have told us that, when traveling in unfamiliar territory, they will often follow other trucks, hoping to find shortcuts. Southbound trucks on Route 20, seeing General Shale trucks turning onto Route 738, may well follow them onto this narrow road. Such traffic would affect residents along the entire length of Route 738.

    Finally, note that route 20 is one of our area's most important tourist corridors, connecting the Barboursville and Horton wineries with Montpelier. Tourists may come to associate visits to Orange County with cracked windsheilds, long waits behind slow truck traffic and near-misses at dangerous intersections.

    Click to See a Larger Picture
    Click to See a Larger Picture

    (Click on the images above to see larger versions of them)
  • Railroad Crossing
    In order to reach Route 20, trucks leaving the proposed mine would have to cross two railroad tracks, near the intersection of 738 and 20. According to Norfolk-Southern, an average of 12 trains cross Route 738 daily between 9 AM and 5 PM. This produces several potential hazards.

    First, the distance between the tracks and Route 20 is too short for large trucks. Long trucks that pause at Route 20's stop sign actually hang over onto the railroad tracks. Trucks coming from the other direction hang out into route 20 when they stop at the railroad's crossing gate.

    In the 90 miles between Charlottesville and Manassas, there is only one section of double track, where one train can safely pass another, and that is between Barboursville and Somerset. If a southbound Amtrak needs to pass a northbound freight, the freight will lie to at Barboursville and wait to be passed, not moving until the other train has gone by. This procedure can take 10 minutes or longer, causing several trucks to line up. With no turning lane on Route 20, trucks waiting to turn into Route 738 will block other southbound traffic on Route 20 until the train passes.

    Click for a Larger Picture
    Photograph of a tractor-trailer stopped with its nose to the railroad crossing gate and its tail sticking out into one lane of Route 20.

    Click for a Larger Picture
    Photograph of a schoolbus and a dump truck on route 738.
  • School Buses
    The possibility of accidents between trucks and schoolbuses is of particular concern. At least four school buses are routed through Route 738 each school day, and there are nine school bus stops on Route 20 between Routes 655 and 738, some at blind curves. (The stopping distance of a loaded tractor-trailer traveling at 55 MPH is 290 feet. Empty, the distance increases.) A 9-foot-wide school bus and a 9-foot-wide dump truck cannot pass each other on the 16-foot-wide pavement of Route 738 without going partially off of the road. Each time a vehicle runs off of the pavement, the pavement surface is weakened and the vehicle and its occupants are endangered.
  • Road Maintenance
    The addition of a thousands of heavy trucks each year to this route will increase the speed with which the road deteriorates. These trucks are proposed to be either tandem-axle dump trucks, which hold 15 tons, or trailer dump trucks, which hold 20 tons. If General Shale does not improve the roads now, the citizens of Orange County will be forced to, and soon.
Some conclusions:
  • Route 738 is clearly too narrow to accommodate the proposed traffic.
  • The addition of many large trucks to the traffic already travelling the proposed hauling route poses a real danger to the safety of motorists.
  • The proposed truck traffic will add significantly to the cost of road maintenance in the area.
 

Sponsored by Friends of Barboursville, inc. P.O. Box 60 Barboursville, VA 22923 (friends@b-ville.net)
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General Shale/Wienerberger Mine
Modified Monday, 18-Apr-2005 17:20:19 UTC