City holds transportation work session

City evaluates road priorities, options for calming traffic, and critiques the County's failure to construct connector roads and bypasses

The Annexation Monster.  Source: Rey Barry's website in which he credits the illustration to local artist Charles Peale.

There was a time when Albemarle County feared Charlottesville’s increasing grasp over County land in the form of annexation.  That’s when this illustration of the Annexation Monster first appeared.  The City and County put an end to annexation in February 1982 with a revenue sharing agreement that has the County taxpayers perpetually making annual contributions to the City’s general fund (in FY 2008 that agreement is expected to send the City about $13.21 million). 

(L to R) Bill Lucy, Cheri Lewis, Dave Norris, and Jim Tolbert

Yet, observing the City Council and City Planning Commission in a joint work session on transportation last week, it sounds as if we now have a "Vehicular Commuter Monster" extending its tentacles and choking City streets.  County encroachment on City roads is among the top concerns of City leaders and residents.  For example, at the last City Council meeting the Fry’s Springs neighborhood demanded the closure of Old Lynchburg Road at the City line to cut one of those traffic tentacles.  City leaders in this work session gave these concerns serious consideration and added their own ideas about ways to send the County a message on traffic.

You can LISTEN to the audio podcast of this meeting by downloading it from Charlottesville Tomorrow's Publications Page.  It was too big to post on the blog.

I’ll admit it.  I am part of the problem.  I have not lived in the City since I was a student at UVA and I have been commuting into downtown Charlottesville every year since graduating in 1990 (my employers have always had offices in the City).  Yet had public transit been available from my past homes in Crozet or Ivy (West), Troy (East), 29 South, or 29 North, I would have gladly ditched my car. 

This meeting was intended to facilitate the City’s updating of transportation goals and policies in the Comprehensive Plan.  Staff intended for this to be a “free flowing discussion,” and their expectations should have easily been met.  At the start of the meeting, Jim Tolbert, Director of the City’s Neighborhood Development Services, asked that the focus of this meeting be generally on roads in the City and not public transit and other modes of transportation, areas on which staff believe there is already broader support and consensus.  During this past year, as the County’s growth areas have seen major rezoning requests come forward (e.g. North Pointe, Biscuit Run, Old Trail), the City and County have been advancing a plan to form a regional transit authority (RTA).  Obviously, traffic congestion is a regional problem as commuters are also coming from localities beyond Albemarle where housing is cheaper and jobs are scarcer.

So back to the work session… Here are the major issues that received discussion:

• Traffic coming into City via Albemarle County
• Traffic calming options in the City
• The merits of improving the street grid with new interconnections
• The absence of traffic and employment data for the decision makers to consider

Here are some specific highlights from the discussion:

• 00:24:13 -- Jim Tolbert: "One solution to cut-through [traffic in the City] is to make the arterials flow better [improving the level of service]... If you do that though, then the other side of that is, do you encourage even more of that traffic to come through Charlottesville that might better be served going around us with some of the projects that we have [in the County]? If you look at this map it clearly shows an Eastern Connector need, a Southern Connector need, probably shows a connection on the West that is needed....Do we want to improve the roads that we have to encourage more traffic to use those roads?  I'm not sure."
• 00:28:16 -- Kevin Lynch: "I brought a couple maps from 2000....I think it frames the problem in a way that is more obvious to me in that we're in the middle of this area and we've got all these pipes coming in from the County....We are already at most of our 2015 [traffic projections]....This is a similar map...looking at projections for 2020.  We were projecting 4200 cars a day on Old Lynchburg Road by 2020 and [today] we've got 5300...On every [road] I can see, we are higher on the existing map then we were projecting in 2020....I think part of that problem is... we are in the center of this growing region.  Albemarle County created the development area in 1980 and since 1980 they have essentially built a city the size of Charlottesville around Charlottesville and they've built exactly two roads.  They have built Berkmar Drive... and the [road in front of Monticello High School].  That's it.  Two roads to handle a City the size of Charlottesville."
• 00:46:20 -- Kevin Lynch: "We gotta say no Meadowcreek Parkway.  We don't want to put another pipe into the City until [the County] builds something that connects around. That's part of what has been driving our strategy, build the Eastern Connector, build the Southern Parkway, then we will do the Meadowcreek Parkway, otherwise we are just putting more pipes into the center."
• 01:40:00 -- Bill Lucy: Mr. Lucy suggests two policy recommendations: 1) extend UVA prohibition on students with cars to include second year students, or if they have a car, require it to be parked in a UVA parking lot and not in City neighborhoods; 2) prohibit Charlottesville High School sophomores from parking at the school.
• 01:51:30 -- David Brown: "I think the interest among some members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors in a transit authority is to create something where they can see some efficient transit that goes from Pantops up [Route] 29 without having to go on Main Street....I think that is a real positive trend."
• 01:58:00 -- Kevin Lynch: "In the case of proffers for Biscuit Run. They've talked about $3 million in proffers the City could get.  My take on it is I'd rather not have your proffers.  I'd rather you build a road, take that $3 million and build a bridge over Moore's Creek so you can build the [Fontaine Ave/Sunset Connector].  Those are the kind of decisions I think we need to have.  We have gone along since 2000 with supporting the County not wanting the [Western 29] bypass, or at least not pushing for the 29 bypass.  At the time they said this really wasn't the right road, we need a grid of streets....I don't see that flexible network.  At the time on the [Metropolitan Planning Organization], if the City had voted to build the bypass, we could have had it built."
• 01:59:20 -- David Brown: "To be fair, the City Council at the time, I don't know about the current City Council, was not unanimously in favor of the road, that's for sure."

Brian Wheeler

Comments

[Sean Tubbs]

Brian, I've just been wondering about one thing. The City seems to think commuting will be a problem. But, what role could public transit play in alleviating this?

How could transportation help move people from their homes to their workplaces? Could a fast bus system be run up Fifth Street Extended from Biscuit Run to the new transit center? What would what take, and how much would it cost?