The Work Zone You Drive Through Every Day
Every morning, thousands of Shenandoah Valley commuters merge through orange barrels, slow for reduced speed limits, and navigate narrowed lanes on I-81 near Strasburg. Most of them wonder the same thing: when will this ever be finished?
Ken Slack has the answer — and a lot more to say about what’s coming next.
Slack serves as Communications Specialist for VDOT’s Staunton District, and talks with The Valley Today host Janet Michael on a stormy spring afternoon to break down the state of the Valley’s roads, bridges, and trails in plain, accessible terms. What emerged was a detailed portrait of an agency managing enormous responsibility across a vast corridor — one pothole, one bridge beam, and one public meeting at a time. Click here to listen.
Progress on I-81: A Bridge Takes Shape
The most visible construction project in the region is moving forward on schedule. VDOT’s southbound widening of I-81 at Strasburg is now approximately one-third complete, with a target finish date of fall 2028. While that timeline still stretches more than two years out, Slack points to recent milestones that signal meaningful momentum.
“Just over the last few weeks, folks driving through — especially at night — might have seen the contractors putting some of those massive steel beams in place for a new section of the bridge over Cedar Creek,” Slack explains. The bridge sits at the Shenandoah-Warren County line and represents phase one of a full replacement of the southbound structure. With the beams now in place, crews will soon pour the concrete decking and shift traffic onto the new section, freeing them to build the second half.
Slack expects that traffic shift to happen around August — a small but significant milestone in a project that will ultimately transform one of the region’s most congested stretches of interstate. “When it’s all finished,” he says, “you’re gonna be like, I forgot what it was like before, but this is nice now.”
Winchester Is Next — And VDOT Is Planning Smarter
Even as Strasburg work continues, VDOT is already looking north. Upcoming improvements in the Winchester area will address both interstate widening and a major reconfiguration of the Exit 317 interchange, including a new diverging diamond design. Rather than tackle these projects separately — which would mean tearing up pavement twice — VDOT made the deliberate decision to bundle them into a single design-build contract.
“It makes a lot more sense if we can bundle those projects,” Slack says. “A design-build team comes in a little bit earlier in the process, finishes up the design, takes it through right-of-way and construction.”
Still, the sheer scope of Winchester’s needs required dividing the work into northern and southern segments. The northern half will cover roughly two miles of widening and replacement of six bridges, while the southern segment follows a year or two later. Construction remains a couple of years away, but planning is already well underway. For commuters who navigate the tangle of I-81, Route 522, and Route 50 every day, the improvements cannot come soon enough.
Pothole Season: The Science Behind the Frustration
Beyond the major construction zones, Slack turned his attention to one of the most universally relatable road complaints: potholes. And he came prepared with a remarkably clear explanation of why they form in the first place.
“Fill a plastic water bottle all the way to the top, put the cap on it, and put it in your freezer,” he offers. “When it freezes, that bottle’s gonna expand.” The same principle applies to water that seeps into cracks in asphalt. As late winter and early spring bring repeated freeze-thaw cycles, moisture beneath the road surface expands, contracts, and eventually forces the pavement to buckle and break. Traffic does the rest.
VDOT responds with three types of patching material — hot mix, cold mix, and warm mix — each suited to different seasons and conditions. Cold mix, applicable year-round, serves as a temporary fix. Hot mix delivers a longer-lasting repair but requires warmer conditions. When potholes repeatedly reappear in the same stretch of road, that pattern typically signals that fuller rehabilitation is needed.
How to Get Your Pothole Fixed
Rather than simply venting on social media, Slack encourages residents to report road issues directly to VDOT. The agency’s online portal, accessible by searching “MyVDOT,” is mobile-friendly and accepts reports for potholes, drainage problems, downed signs, and storm debris. Residents can also call 800-FOR-ROAD.
Critically, Slack emphasizes that real people — not automated systems — receive and process these reports. Each submission generates a work order routed to the nearest area headquarters. “It will get taken care of at some point,” he says. “It may not be as fast as you’d like all the time, but it will get done.”
Bridges Built to Last: The Salt Problem Nobody Talks About
The conversation also surfaced a less obvious infrastructure challenge: the corrosive effect of road salt on bridges. While salt plays an essential role in winter road safety, it accelerates deterioration at bridge seams and joints — the points where sections meet and moisture can infiltrate.
VDOT’s answer, wherever possible, is to build jointless structures. Slack points to the bridge over the South Fork of the Shenandoah River in Front Royal — completed around 2017 and stretching nearly 1,900 feet — as a standout example. It holds the distinction of being the longest jointless structure in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
“When you don’t have seams, there’s nowhere for those salts and the moisture to get in and cause corrosion,” Slack explains. “That thing will last for the better part of a century.”
A Trail — or a Rail? The Valley Faces a Big Decision
Perhaps the most forward-looking topic of the conversation was a feasibility study that could reshape how Valley residents and visitors experience the region entirely. VDOT is currently conducting a rail-with-trail assessment of a nearly 50-mile former Norfolk Southern rail corridor stretching from the town of Broadway in northern Rockingham County, through Mount Jackson, Strasburg, and Woodstock, all the way to downtown Front Royal.
The study explores two possibilities: converting the unused rail line entirely into a recreational trail, or building a multi-use trail alongside the existing rail infrastructure — preserving the option for future freight or excursion rail service. Both scenarios carry significant implications for tourism, economic development, property rights, and regional connectivity.
To gather community input, VDOT is hosting in-person public meetings in April in Woodstock, Timberville, and Front Royal. An online survey will also launch in early April for those who cannot attend in person. All feedback will feed into a final report submitted to the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
“That’s why we reach out,” Slack says. “We try to do it in different ways — in-person meetings, online surveys — to give folks a chance to weigh in.”
The Long View
What stands out most from the conversation with Ken Slack is not any single project or timeline, but the underlying philosophy driving VDOT’s work: infrastructure is generational. The decisions made today about I-81, about Winchester’s interchanges, about a quiet unused rail line threading through the Valley’s small towns — these decisions will shape how people live, work, and move through this region long after the orange barrels are gone.
“These are improvements that I think are gonna be much appreciated by a lot of the folks that drive this corridor,” Slack says.
For Valley residents, staying informed and showing up to public meetings is more than civic participation. It’s a direct line to shaping that future.
