Virginia to use $34.7 million to increase road resiliency, monitor inclement weather

Virginia will receive $34.7 million in federal funding to increase roadway resiliency and implement a weather and traffic monitoring system to help communities respond to extreme weather events. All projects are currently in the design phase.

The city of Virginia Beach will receive $19 million to improve a 1.5-mile stretch of Pungo Ferry Road. The project will raise the low-lying roadway portion by 4 feet to address recurring flooding issues and make it passable during 100-year storms. The city will also build paved, graded shoulders and bike paths.

The road provides a critical east-west connection for several military installations, agricultural lands and wildlife refuges. Construction will begin in August 2027.

Stafford County will use $10.3 million to realign a portion of Brooke Road to mitigate persistent flooding. The Brooke Road Improvement Project will elevate a half-mile of the road’s “S” curve above the 100-year floodplain. Once completed, the realigned roadway will allow local communities easier access to critical amenities during heavy rainstorms. Construction will begin in 2026.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) will receive $5.4 million to install a weather- and traffic-monitoring system to help improve emergency evacuations during natural disasters. The Modernizing Operations for Virginia’s Evacuation Resilience (MOVER) system includes flood sensors, stream gauges and traffic cameras across the Tidewater and Chesapeake regions. These technologies will provide real-time data to inform decisions during floods, heavy wind, fires and landslides.

“As severe weather events become more common, we’re glad to see this funding further shore up resilience efforts to protect residents, assist with evacuations, and address the frustration of flooded roads,” Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said.

The funding was made available through grants administered by the U.S Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) program. USDOT will deliver nearly $830 million for 80 projects nationwide.

The program funds projects to make transportation infrastructure more resilient to future weather events and other natural disasters by focusing on resilience planning, making resilience improvements to existing transportation assets and evacuation routes, and addressing at-risk highway infrastructure.