VDOT Apron and Paver and Concrete Driveways in Vienna, VA

This Vienna, VA project covered the whole approach to the house: a VDOT apron at the street, concrete and paver driveway ribbon strips, a concrete driveway framed with paver borders, gravel placement and major grading.

Who permitted the apron

A Vienna postal address can sit inside the incorporated Town of Vienna or in unincorporated Fairfax County, and that decides who permits the apron. Inside town limits the entrance permit comes from the Town of Vienna Department of Public Works; on a state-maintained street the apron sits in VDOT right-of-way and needs a VDOT land use permit with a refundable surety. This entrance is on a state-maintained street in Fairfax County, outside the Town of Vienna, so it was built as a VDOT apron under a VDOT land use permit. In our experience these reviews commonly take one to two months, and the disturbed ground around the new apron has to be restored and stabilized with established grass before VDOT signs off and releases the surety.

How we build this scope

A standard residential driveway is typically 4 inches thick. A VDOT apron built to the CG-9D spec used in Fairfax and Prince William must be a minimum of 7 inches thick. We install VDOT #21A crushed stone to the depth the entrance standard and permit require, compacted in lifts, and we reinforce an apron only where the jurisdiction's detail calls for it.

Our standard 4-inch driveway gets about 8 inches of excavation and about 4 inches of compacted #21A crushed stone, with 6x6 welded wire mesh pulled up into the center of the slab during the pour and a slip-resistant broom finish. The paver border is a concrete edging with the border pavers wet-set in mortar. Concrete and masonry move at different rates, so hairline cracks in mortar joints over time are a normal part of any mortared work (The Tuck Standard, Section 8C).