Repaving of Reeds Gap Road coming this year
The steep and twisting part of Route 664 in Augusta County that is attached to the Blue Ridge Parkway will finally be repaved this summer.
The Virginia Department of Transportation confirmed that the contract for the asphalt resurfacing has been awarded. The two-lane road is the primary road to the west for the Wintergreen mountain community when the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed in the winter.
“I do not have an exact date of when the contractor will move in to perform this work. We are very optimistic that they will do it at the first part of the summer season, but contractually, they have until November to complete it,” noted VDOT's Kay Vance, Jr., Maintenance Operations Manager of the Harrisonburg Residency, who is working the contracts,
The long-overdue resurfacing on Reeds Gap Road had been postponed to funding restraints, Vance said.
Eroded ditches were filled with rip-rack, new drainage culverts were installed, and potholes were filled last year. In May VDOT’s maintenance crews will do more repairs to the shoulders, ditch line and roadway in preparation for the resurfacing, Vance said. Last year’s rains caused serious erosion in the ditches.
This part of Route 664 is the only primary road leading to Wintergreen needing major resurfacing. Two years ago the road from the end of Reeds Gap Road into Waynesboro was paved. The US Park Service gave the Blue Ridge Parkway here new blacktop in 2011. Much of Route 151's surface has been reworked over the last four years, and Route 664 from Route 151 in Nelson County to the entrance of the mountain community was resurfaced four years ago.