BUILD IT, AND THEY WILL COME — As workers and heavy equipment widen a segment of Veterans Memorial Parkway in Orange City, cars travel northward and southward in the constrained construction zone. The widening of a portion of VMP north of Harley Strickland Boulevard began April 2, and it is supposed to be finished on or before Dec. 6.
Work is underway to improve the traffic flow on a well-used thoroughfare in Orange City.
Another segment of Veterans Memorial Parkway is being widened to accommodate more traffic. A portion of the road, about three-fifths of a mile between Harley Strickland Boulevard and East Rhode Island Avenue, is about to become a four-lane stretch. The widening of this additional piece of VMP comes as Parc Hill fills up with single-family homes and apartments.
“As a part of that project, part of the impact was that they had to mitigate the traffic,” Volusia County Engineer Tadd Kasbeer said.
The cost of that mitigation, or easing, of the current and anticipated traffic congestion will be paid with road impact fees and proportionate-share payments from the developers.
The four-laning of the affected part of VMP is a $3.26 million project, Kasbeer noted.
“The county is funding the construction. It started April 2,” he said.
The task of widening the piece of VMP is to be completed no later than Dec. 6, Kasbeer also said. Veterans Memorial Parkway has a design speed limit of 35 miles per hour, he added.
The portion of VMP between Harley Strickland Boulevard and East Rhode Island Avenue has an average daily traffic volume of 19,440 vehicles, according to the county’s 2021 traffic counts. The 2021 numbers are the latest figures available.
The county plans to four-lane Veterans Memorial Parkway northward to East Graves Avenue, but a definite time for doing so has not been set.
The contractor for the VMP project is Halifax Paving Inc., of Ormond Beach.
