A cell tower by the Capital Beltway in northern Virginia must be removed before the end of this year to make way for the road’s widening. That leaves Fairfax County and state transportation officials scrambling to prevent service disruptions, notes FFX now.
The 135-foot-tall monopole stands right next to I-495 at the Old Dominion Drive bridge, which will be replaced by a new two-lane bridge. The work is part of a public-private partnership between Virginia and Transurban to extend 495 toll lanes north by two-and-a-half miles from Dulles to the George Washington Parkway interchanges near the American Legion Bridge over the Potomac River.
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) determined the tower needed to be moved “well over a year ago,” but no progress has been made to identify a temporary or permanent new site, Megaprojects Director Susan Shaw told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, according to FFXnow.
“The providers to-date have said that there is no temporary location that’s acceptable to them,” she said. “We’re all working very hard to try to resolve it, and I think we’ve tried to provide a lot of ideas for where they might find acceptable locations on VDOT right-of- way, but again, we’re not experts. It’s very specific technically in terms of what would work for them and maintaining the kind of service that they have.”
American Tower owns the monopole, notes FFXnow. It initially faced a September 30 deadline for the removal, but that has been extended to December 31. The tower has to be decommissioned in November so the utilities can be removed and the structure dismantled, according to Shaw.
VDOT has spoken with AT&T and T-Mobile which both use the pole. VDOT was told service along the Beltway won’t be affected, but service for the surrounding communities “would be degraded,” particularly during periods of peak demand, Shaw said.
AT&T confirmed that some of its customers “may experience intermittent wireless service disruptions near Old Dominion Drive and the Capital Beltway. We, like other carriers, are being forced to remove our antennas so that they can widen the Beltway,” an AT&T spokesperson said. “We apologize for the inconvenience, and we are working with state and Fairfax County officials to identify an alternative site for our equipment. In the meantime, we have optimized other nearby sites to try and extend coverage until this is resolved.” AT&T said customers who experience disruptions can use its WiFi calling service instead.
The lack of clarity around how the tower’s removal will affect service “has been particularly frustrating,” Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust told FFXnow. Foust says American Tower representatives reported this spring they were looking for an alternative site, but his office didn’t learn about the initial September 30 deadline until August. The county convinced VDOT to extend the deadline, and since then, VDOT officials, county staff, American Tower and the carriers have been meeting every two weeks to try to find a solution.
“It seems obvious that with advanced planning, this issue could have been resolved without impact to cell service,” Foust said. Foust says he will introduce a board matter next Tuesday, October 11, directing the county to send a letter to VDOT and the carriers “asking them to describe their plan for ensuring that cell service will not be adversely impacted, and to describe what they are doing to mitigate impacts if they cannot be avoided.”
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