City Council follows Supervisors’ example and puts Eastern Connector on hold

The Charlottesville City Council has agreed with the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors that further study of the proposed Eastern Connector be put on hold until more is known about traffic patterns and possible ways to pay for the road. Their decision came despite a recommendation from staff that the County be asked to conduct a more detailed location study of two potential routes. Council made their decision after viewing a report at their meeting on November 17, 2008.

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The parameters of the Eastern Connector location study, according to a document on the Albemarle County website

Engineer Jeanette Janiczek presented a summary of the alternatives recommended by the steering committee. Janiczek said that one of the challenges of the study was to establish a clear purpose and need. She said the City’s expectations were that “a new eastern connection needed to be developed north of the City on 29 and east of the City on 250 and that it should be a new alignment.” However, Janiczek said City staff grew concerned when the steering committee expanded the scope of the study to include land inside of Charlottesville. She said PBS&J’s Lewis Grimm was able to demonstrate a need for the road to be built in the County, citing projected growth and employment figures.

“Unfortunately the committee was unable to form a consensus as to where exactly this traffic was coming from, where it was going, and exactly in what jurisdiction this alignment would best serve the traffic,” Janiczek said.

The staff report, authored by Janiczek and Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Tolbert, goes further by asserting: “The County staff and those on the committee remain
unconvinced that there needs to be an additional east-north connection created -
believing most of the traffic is coming into the City and not bypassing it.”

In fact, the Committee eventually recommended that an alignment for a four-lane road connecting Rio Road with Route 250 via Pen Park be further studied. They based their conclusion on traffic models that showed it would have the most effect on relieving congestion on Route 250. In making their recommendation, committee members acknowledged there would be public opposition as well as regulatory obstacles to putting another road through another City-owned park. The Committee also recommended that two other alignments, a relocation of Proffit Road and Polo Grounds Road, be set aside for the long-term future. They decided these two routes would not provide enough traffic capacity to be worth the large costs.

The Board of Supervisors decided on October 1, 2008 to put the study on hold given they were not satisfied that the project’s need was adequately backed up with traffic data. The Board suggested waiting until additional data could be collected on the area’s driving patterns, including an origin and destination study. Given the cost of the road, the Board also wanted to wait to see if a Regional Transit Authority might provide a dedicated source of local revenue for new transportation projects. Board Chairman Ken Boyd (Rivanna) served on the committee, but there has not been a sitting Councilor on the panel since Kevin Lynch’s term on Council expired.

A conceptual drawing for the Pen Park alignment, as developed by PBS&J

Janiczek said City staff’s recommendation to Council is to follow some of the short-term intermediate solutions suggested by PBS&J. These would include improving traffic signal synchronization on Route 250, as well as additional bus service to Pantops on Route 250. However, Janiczek said the County would have to pay for the additional service. The City is also requesting the Pen Park alignment be removed from any further consideration, and to request that the County further study the Polo Grounds and Proffit Road alignments. Janiczek said these location studies could help preserve the land for future use. Staff suggested this be communicated to the County through a letter of support for further location study.

Mayor Dave Norris wanted to clarify that the City is requesting a further location study, even though the Board of Supervisors have opted not to do so at this time. Janiczek said the letter of support would acknowledge the County’s justifications, but would also indicate the City’s desire to see the Eastern Connector move forward if located outside City limits. Janiczek said staff does not recommend spending any further City money on the project.

The last origin and destination study was conducted in 1999, and Janiczek said the County would like to commission another one. She said that the studies are good ways to test the accuracy of traffic models, but do not necessarily provide clear answers. New data will also come from the National Household Transportation Study that will be conducted next year in advance of the 2010 Census. The City and County are pursuing two pieces of legislation that would create a Regional Transit Authority and authorize the City and County to pursue a local sales tax or other revenue options.

Mayor Norris said the study was useful, and did show that the Pen Park alignment is the only one that would make sense. But, he said he was not willing to sacrifice the park, and was not sure any further study of the Eastern Connector should go forward at this time because of the lack of County interest.

Councilor Satyendra Huja said he thought the City should wait for more data before taking further action. He also said he was worried that Route 250 will be “totally jammed” if improvements are not made.

“I’m not looking for a City alternative. The traffic is coming from the County. They ought to take care of their traffic to some degree,” Huja said. He added that the northern alternatives would look more attractive in the light of further data, but that the City should not spend any more money on a location study.

Norris suggested that the City follow the Board’s decision to keep the project dormant until more information and funding options are available. Councilor David Brown made a motion to that effect, which passed 5-0.

Sean Tubbs

 

County Supervisors put Eastern Connector study on hold

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has put the study of the Eastern Connector on hold for a few years until more data can be collected about how County residents move around. They made their decision after viewing a presentation on the final recommendations of the Eastern Connector Corridor Location Study. The matter has been referred to the Metropolitan Planning Organization for further negotiations between the City and the County.

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The Eastern Connector originated as a transportation project when it was included on the UNJAM 2025 plan as a potential roadway, according to Lewis Grimm. Grimm is the Project Manager for PBS&J, the consulting firm hired by the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County to conduct the study at a cost of $500,000.  After nearly two years, Grimm and the study’s steering committee recommended an alignment to connect Route 20 with Rio Road via Pen Park because it would provide the most relief for traffic congestion. Polo Grounds Road and Proffit Road were suggested as two alternatives for future corridors.

Lewis Grimm of PBS&J

During his presentation on October 1, 2008, Grimm showed multiple slides that he said justified the project’s need. They depicted estimates for population, employment and traffic growth. Grimm also showed a snapshot of how traffic patterns currently move through the region, and the Board held a discussion about whether or not the figures were accurate. Supervisor David Slutzky (Rio) said that he was concerned that the information was flawed because it did not fully represent the origin and destination of each trip.

“It sounds like we’re challenged in our ability to gather good data because these are hypothetical trips that we can’t measure today other than through the graphic that looks at the density of future development,” Slutzky said.

Grimm defended the use of traffic forecasting models and said billions and billions of dollars are spent around the nation each year based on similar models. Supervisor Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett) said it is prohibitively expensive to conduct origin and destination studies. Slutzky said the County and the City would soon have access to some of that information because of the National Household Transportation Study that will be conducted next year in advance of the 2010 Census. 

Chart depicting traffic flow patterns, but not origins and destinations

That’s going to give us some potentially really useful information in informing the decision about whether we want an Eastern Connector,” Slutzky said. Rooker said the County would still need to overlay that information on the total number of trips, something he said could be expensive.

Turning to the subject of where a new two-lane connector road might go, Grimm said the location study was somewhat challenged. “There aren’t a whole lot of empty spaces in the study area we’re dealing with,” he said. “There’s a lot of existing development there, whether its residential, commercial. There’s a lot of wetland areas, a lot of historic areas, and a lot of constraints to try to work around.”

The steering committee recommended three alternatives, but said only one of them would begin to alleviate congestion on Route 250 – the Pen Park Route. “It’s only the [Pen Park] corridor improvements, either as a 2-lane or as a 4-lane, that begin to make a more significant, more noticeable change in how badly congested the 250 bridge would be,” Grimm said.

Grimm said the steering committee and his team also modeled the effects of a second vehicular bridge over the Rivanna River, south of Free Bridge, that would be built in addition to the Eastern Connector. This item could not be included as a recommended alternative due to a directive from Charlottesville City Council. Council is concerned about routing County traffic through the City. Supervisor Dennis Rooker said it was all City-related traffic. Supervisor Ann Mallek (White Hall) pointed out many people work in the City. Grimm said it depends on how you define “city traffic.”

“Some people would say a city trip is one where the origin is in the City, and the destination is in the City,” Grimm said. “If the origin is in the City, and the destination is in the County, is that a city trip, or a county trip, or half of each?”

“That would make it a joint project then,” Rooker quipped.

Supervisor Slutzky asked if PBS&J had also modeled a scenario with increased transit. Grimm said they had not because the traffic demand forecast for this region does not yet include a transit option. That will also change in the near future as the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is working on a plan to gather that information.

Slutzky said he could not support any of the alternatives. “I’m not the least bit comfortable with these options as the three options, and I’m certainly not comfortable… with having us go forward with a recommendation that is very strongly opposed by my constituents,” he said. “I think there are other opportunities for us to get the notion of an Eastern Connector right that might require us to wait until… we have better origin and destination data… and we see where we are or are not going with our transit system in the next couple of years.”

Source: PBS&J

Supervisor Rooker said he was concerned that the Pen Park route would overload the intersection of Route 20 and Route 250, which he said is already a difficult intersection. Grimm acknowledged the concern, but pointed out that the Pantops Master Plan calls for a multimodal transportation system which is in part intended to spread traffic flows around. He said the Eastern Connector has never been conceived of as a by-pass, but as one part of an integrated network that will evolve over time.

Slutzky said that Grimm had clearly shown that neither Proffit Road or Polo Grounds Road could serve as the Eastern Connector, but also highlighted the importance of solving the congestion on Free Bridge.
“The level of service failure that we’re confronting imminently is going to prove to be really problematic,” Slutzky said.

Boyd agreed, and said the issue is one of what the County wants versus what the City wants. “I thought that what we wanted was to alleviate the congestion on Route 250, and that might be best served by a bridge on the other side of 250, at the High Street Route. We really didn’t look at that because the City said the purpose of the study was to figure out how to lessen the number of cars that are driving through [Charlottesville].”

Slutzky said that was the view of Kevin Lynch, and not necessarily City Council. Boyd said Lynch was a member of City Council, and continued to represent Council on the steering committee, even after leaving Council.

Rooker said the County can’t force the City to build a bridge, but could point out the effects of not building the bridge. Slutzky suggested the conversation continue at the MPO. Slutzky and Rooker serve on that body along with City Councilors Satyendra Huja and Julian Taliaferro. Rooker said there was little chance there would be enough funding for a full Eastern Connector “in our lifetime” given the current cutbacks in state transportation funding.

“And the question is, how much more do we spend on this project when we have many many other needs for projects that are already in the [UNJAM 2035] plan that we know we need?” Rooker asked.
Slutzky said he agreed, but also did not want to send the signal to the City that the County is abandoning the Eastern Connector. Rooker said he did not disagree, but did not want to spend any additional money specifically on studying the Eastern Connector at this time. He agreed with Slutzky’s approach, and said that the County would need to come up with a creative solution in the future.

The Charlottesville City Council will view the report in November, according to a comment made by Jim Tolbert at the end of their meeting on October 6, 2008.

TIMELINE FOR PODCAST:

• 1:00 -  Introduction from Juandiego Wade, County Transportation Planner
• 1:45 - Presentation from Lewis Grimm of PBS&J, beginning with recommendations of committee
• 4:30 - Grimm reviews the origins of the Eastern Connector
• 7:45 - Rooker asks for clarification of traffic data
• 8:30 - Slutzky requests traffic information from the intersection of Rio/Hillsdale to where Rio becomes Park
• 10:00 - Grimm reviews population growth and employement projections, and then moves on to slides depicting how traffic moves along Route 250
• 13:50 - Thomas asks Grimm why traffic numbers for AM and PM differ, prompting discussion of traffic modeling
• 21:00 - Grimm reviews current transportation projects
• 26:40 - Grimm reviews the final concepts arrived at by the steering committee
• 31:24 - Grimm discusses how his team modeled the effects of a second bridge over the Rivanna
• 35:38 - Slutzky asks if a transit-only project was modeled
• 38:15 - Slutzky says he cannot support the committee's recommendations
• 45:40 - Rooker discusses the funding gap, prompting discussion of potential funding options
• 50:20 - Rooker asks about the possibility of getting the federal approvals to go through Pen Park
• 52:10 - Thomas asks about the possibility of having a transit-only road through the park, leading to a discussion of need for additional origin and destination information
• 59:30 - Slutzky wraps up the discussion by suggesting carrying conversation into the MPO

Sean Tubbs

Eastern Connector final report under review in Albemarle; City’s evaluation uncertain

After nearly two years of work, the final report of the Eastern Connector Corridor Location study will be presented to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Lewis Grimm of the engineering firm PBS&J will make the full presentation this afternoon. It remains to be seen if the Charlottesville City Council will see the report. Both jurisdictions have contributed $250,000 to pay PBS&J for their work.

The Easter Connector Study was initiated in December of 2006 to investigate a possible transportation link between the Pantops area on Route 250 and the Route 29 corridor of Albemarle county. The Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) had identified “failure grade” traffic congestion along key roads in their UNJAM 2025 report, and PBS&J was hired to further investigate the traffic models in order to gauge the effectiveness of possible alignments.

A steering committee consisting of stakeholders from both Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville was formed to guide PBS&J’s work. Ken Boyd (Rivanna) represents the County Board of Supervisors, and Kevin Lynch was appointed while serving as a Councilor. Lynch continues to represent the City of Charlottesville on the steering committee, but there is currently no elected official from the city involved in the study. The task force was instructed to recommend a two-lane road with multi-modal elements, specifically bike paths and sidewalks.

Several public meetings were held, in which over 125 residents expressed their concerns over going forward with the Eastern Connector. They cited potential environmental impacts, decreased access to public parks, and disturbance of residential neighborhoods. PBS&J agreed to incorporate this input into the process of devising alternatives for consideration by the steering committee.

During the course of a year, 13 alternatives were studied, debated, and finally winnowed down to three: a relocation of Proffit Road, a Polo Grounds Road connector, and a Pen Park route, connecting Rio Road and Route 20, either through or around the park. These were presented at a public meeting in November 2007. The citizens who attended the meeting expressed disapproval with all of the options, especially upon hearing that any of the projects would only adjust travel time between the two urban areas by a few minutes. The lack of public support sent the committee back to the drawing board.

The hearing sparked a debate about whether the problem is local or regional in nature. Many citizens assumed that much of the traffic flow was due to long-distance travel between Interstate 64 and Route 29 north, but the consultant’s traffic analysis only attributed 5% to through trips. Most of the traffic was determined to be local, which lent credence to the idea that a local connector would be more effective than a full-scale bypass. Some legal concerns were also raised over whether the Federal government would approve of the alternative placing the route through Pen Park, but the committee felt confident that a good case for the road could persuade them to give clearance for the project. The possibility of improving Route 250 and widening Free Bridge was also considered.

In March of 2008, the Charlottesville City Council sent a memo to Grimm instructing him to take off the table any alternatives within the city limits, considering that the initial purpose of the connector was to relieve traffic through the city center. Council began to express doubt about whether the study would lead to any workable results. In a letter to the steering committee, they also suggested that transit options be taken into consideration. When the Meadowcreek Parkway was approved in August, the City Council made the approval contingent on further study of the Easter Connector.

The steering committee met a few times into the summer of 2008 to hear updates from PBS&J’s Project manager Lewis Grimm and set the course for future study. The Pen Park alignment slowly emerged as the favorite. The preliminary estimates of the cost ranged between $28 and $79 million, depending on which route would be taken through the park, but these figures were not precise enough for the committee to confidently present them to elected officials. If any costs are provided, said Kevin Lynch, a full report of the methodology ought to be provided. Questions were raised over how this project could best be sold to the public and ultimately where the funding would come from.

The steering committee met on September 4, 2008 to assemble the final recommendations for both the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the Charlottesville City Council. The analysis is broken into short/immediate and long term actions. The immediate goal is to optimize signal timing on Route 250, increase transit frequency to Pantops, and, most importantly, to add a 4-lane road between Rio Road and Route 20 into the long range transportation plan and designate the other two alternative s as “unfunded needs.” In the longer term, they would like to see the connector actually built and road corridors for the other alternatives designated in the County’s Comprehensive Plan.

The case will be made for the connector with use of data collected from PBS&J for population, employment, and  traffic predictions for the next 20 years. Grimm stated that the bottom line is, “It will take you longer to get from point A to point B, regardless of what point A and B is,” even if these time differentials actually do vary considerably from place to place.  Although the committee is clear that there were no easy routes available, they will suggest the Rio Road connection to Route 20 via Pen Park as the recommended alignment a future Eastern Connector.

City Manager Gary O'Connell and Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Tolbert have decided to send Council a written report on the alignment study. Council can then decide whether they want to view the full presentation from Grimm.

Daniel Nairn

Committee delays Eastern Connector presentation to Supervisors

The consultant overseeing the Eastern Connector location study has been given more time to prepare a final report to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the Charlottesville City Council. The steering committee spent its meeting on July 25, 2008 debating what items should be in the presentation, but ended up requesting more information on the preliminary cost estimates.

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch and Ken Boyd, Chairman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors

The committee began their meeting as Lewis Grimm, project manager for PBS&J, reviewed the presentation he was expecting to give to the Board of Supervisors in August.  Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch took issue with one item including in the meeting packet put together for Committee members. PBS&J created a spreadsheet which lists cost estimates for the various alternatives, and Lynch wanted to know how they were put together.

“Without knowing what assumptions are made, it’s hard to say that Alternative 3 could cost from $28 to $79 million dollars,” Lynch said.

Grimm said he could provide that information to the committee, but had not included the methodology in the packet because he had compiled data on right-of-way costs up until the day before the meeting.  The spreadsheet broke cost estimates into construction and right of way costs.

Lynch was particularly concerned about the figure of $54 million Grimm used as the cost to acquire the land for a two-lane Eastern Connector alignment that travels straight through Pen Park. The land acquisition costs for Pen Park alignments that skirt the park’s edges were both estimated at $14.8 million. Lynch was concerned that the high price tags would push City Councilors and Albemarle Supervisors to drop the Eastern Connector from consideration.

“If all you have is this spreadsheet, it looks like an excuse to do nothing,” Lynch said. He questioned whether Grimm’s $54 million was accurate, given that the City donated land in McIntire Park to VDOT for the construction of its portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway. 

The County’s transportation planner, Juandiego Wade, said the County’s real estate office had been involved in the calculations, and said the estimates were preliminary. Lynch urged Wade and Grimm to get more realistic cost estimates before showing them to the Board and Council. 

Mark Graham, Director of Community Development for Albemarle County

Mark Graham, the County’s Director of Community Development, said he was concerned the numbers provided the illusion of specificity. He also questioned whether detailed cost estimates were useful at this time.

“It’s a very big project that we have no identifiable means of funding, so whether [the spreadsheet] says its $30 million or $50 million, it’s being viewed the same way. We’ll have to go and identify an entirely new  way of funding a project if this thing is ever going to have a hope of being built,” Graham said. 

For a frame of reference, Graham pointed out that the County will spend $30.5 million to construct its portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway, a two-lane road with one bridge.  That led him to assume the Pen Park route would cost somewhere in the $40 to $60 million range.  The spreadsheet with preliminary cost figures listed a total cost estimate for the northern Pen Park route at $46.4 million, and the southern Pen Park route at $28.5 million.

Melissa Barlow, the Director of Transportation Programs for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, urged Grimm to include the costs associated with complying with environmental regulations into the estimates. Specifically, the project will need to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as well as a process to prove to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) that the project is the least environmentally damaging alternative.  While not a voting member of the steering committee, Barlow said she understood Lynch’s concern, but felt the PBS&J numbers should be given to elected officials in the interest of full transparency. Lynch agreed, but said that’s why the methodology had to be open as well. 

Planning Commissioner Mike Farruggio

City Planning Commissioner Michael Farruggio suggested breaking down the right-of-way costs further in the spreadsheet by listing the cost of private and public land. Lynch said he did not think elected officials should be given the cost figures at this time, given that the Committee was not charged with coming up with them. Farruggio disagreed and said that would be the first piece of information he would want to know if he was a Councilor.

The Committee also discussed whether the spreadsheet should include a cost estimate for the widening of High Street, a suggestion made at an earlier meeting that Farruggio felt would alleviate congestion on Route 250, as an alternate to building a new bridge over the Rivanna.  Lynch said including this would be distracting, though he could see the advantages of redeveloping High Street.  Farruggio said he did not think it should be included unless the elected officials would be presented information on whether a second bridge south of Free Bridge would be considered. The City has rejected consideration of a new bridge from the Pantops Shopping Center area as part of the Eastern Connector project, but the Board of

The committee spent 20 minutes discussing the ramifications of this chart (Source: PBS&J)

Supervisors has requested modeling data to show its effect on traffic congestion. Wade suggested showing it to the County, but not the City. Barlow pointed out that there is no cost estimate for a second bridge, so the comparisons would not be complete. Ken Boyd, Chairman of the Albemarle County Supervisors (Rivanna), said he believed the second bridge was not an option because of City opposition.  

While looking at a chart titled “Historical Traffic Growth 2001-2006”, the Committee discussed the destinations of  motorists coming and going from Charlottesville across Free Bridge at the Rivanna River. In particular, the chart indicated a 73.3% growth in vehicles traveling on Route 250 across Free Bridge to Route 20.

“That’s the traffic we’re trying to hit with the Eastern Connector road, and that’s what we’re trying to narrow down and find out what traffic we’re possibly going to divert,” said Boyd.

Wade directed Grimm to provide information on how many vehicles turned left onto East High Street, turned right onto River Road, or continued on the Route 250 bypass. Grimm said he was not sure if he had that information, but said he could use the forecasting model to obtain the data, or could look at any traffic counts conducted by the City or VDOT between 2001 and now.

Lynch said the City has numbers of movements on the bridge, but did not have similar counts for Locust, Park and Hydraulic to find out where vehicles go when they continue into the City.  Farruggio said it was important to get that data.

“You’ve got to determine where the traffic is going once it crosses that bridge. Is it ending up on Rio Road, is it ending on Hydraulic Road, is it ending up going straight, is it ending up going left onto McIntire or left on High Street? You need to be able to break that part into where they’re going,” Farruggio said. He asked how hard it would be to come up with that data. City Traffic Engineer Jeanette Janiczek said she was not sure if the City had enough counters, but they could look into getting the data on turning movements. Farruggio said the count would need to be done on a day when the University of Virginia is in session.

Farruggio is the most recently appointed member of the Committee. Wade reminded him that the topic of traffic destination has been a subject of debate since the beginning of the corridor location study.

“When we first started, we thought the major thrust [of the corridor location study] was traffic on 250 seeking to go to Route 29 North and vice versa, and I think what we found was that wasn’t necessarily the case,” Wade said. 

The bridge again came up after Grimm went through the various alternatives, and explained how each was still supported by the Committee, he went on to describe how various improvements to Route 250 might relieve traffic congestion. He said purely looking at the data, two new bridges over the Rivanna would provide the most traffic relief.

The mention of a two-lane bridge crossing from Pantops into the City troubled Farruggio because unlike the other alternatives, there was no cost estimate for it on the spreadsheet. Lynch agreed there should be a cost estimate associated with the south bridge, but that the Committee has already decided it will not be presented as an option. Wade asked the Committee if it should be taken off. Farruggio suggested including information as a summary at the end separate from the Committee’s recommendations.

When Farruggio asked Janiczek’s opinion, she said she was concerned that the committee was focusing too much on fixing Free Bridge. “If we increased the function of the bridge, that is going to push the problem [of traffic congestion] further along,” Janiczek said. “I’m not quite sure if we have the infrastructure to accept all of these cars coming in so much faster.”

Lynch said he could understand why the County wants a southern bridge. “The City is in the middle of the County, and it’s always going to be more efficient to drive another road through the City, then to go around it,” Lynch said. Boyd began to object, and Farruggio called time out and said that Lynch’s comment was “kind of divisive.”

“If the traffic is going downtown, we have to build our infrastructure to accommodate it, or we have to build an alternative way for them to get into the City. If the case is what we originally thought, which is that they’re going up on 29, then we do need to find an alternate route around the City to get there,” Farruggio said.

Janiczek said East High Street cannot absorb any more traffic, and doesn’t know if the City has the resources to widen it.  Lynch said the County’s urban ring has developed rapidly without the proper infrastructure being in place. “There’s no way to get around the urban ring other than going through the City,” Lynch said. He said Avon, Park and High Street all served as north-south corridors.  Janiczek said she thought the Committee had not done a good job of addressing the purpose and need of the location study. Boyd said that in his mind, the ultimate purpose of the study is to find out what infrastructure improvement will provide the most relief to US 250, which is projected to worsen into a “disaster” over the next twenty years. “If an Eastern Connector on the north side of 250 is the solution to that congestion, then let’s build it,” Boyd said. But he added that it was not worth building if it did not provide a way to divert significant amounts of traffic. Boyd acknowledged that he was not pushing for the southern bridge as an Eastern Connector, but that the region might benefit more from concentrating on fixing Route 250 by expanding it to six lanes and by reducing the number of access points.

Graham suggested that the final report include a statement that the Committee acknowledges some of the challenges associated with Alternative 3 (Rio Road to Route 20 via Pen Park), not the least of which is the opposition from many City residents to using the park for a road. Second, he said it would be difficult to obtain federal environmental permits to go through the park.  He also said both Alternatives 1 and 2 could potentially be obstructed by conservation easements as well as the Southwest Mountain Historic District.

Farruggio said he had no problem with adding such comments, but added that the hurdles associated with widening Route 250 and building a southern bridge be listed too. County Planning Commissioner Cal Morris (Rivanna) said he did not want the report to be too watered down.

“All of the information we’ve shown shows that we can’t just sit by and do nothing,” Morris said.

After reviewing the next steps, the committee decided that the consultant would need more time to prepare the next set of cost estimates. They decided to postpone the Board of Supervisors presentation to the first meeting in October, two weeks after the presentation to City Council. The committee will meet again to review the work before then.

Sean Tubbs

Eastern Connector recommendations to be finalized this Fall; Pen Park alignment remains favorite

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the Charlottesville City Council will not be presented with the recommendations of the Eastern Connector Steering Committee until at least the fall of this year.

On May 30, 2008, the Steering Committee met to refine the recommendations made at its previous meeting. Consultant Lewis Grimm of the firm PBS&J sought feedback on an expanded version of a presentation he will present to the Board and Council at a later date, and the Committee further discussed whether it had met the goals established at the beginning of the evaluation process.

To recap, the Committee is recommending a four-lane route to connect Rio Road with Route 20 along an alignment that would go through Pen Park (Alternate 3). The Committee also suggests two other alternatives, Polo Grounds Road (Alternate 1) and Proffit Road Relocated (Alternate 2), be presented to elected officials. 

Following up on the April meeting, Grimm also provided the Committee with a list of short, intermediate and long-term recommendations for other ways to relieve traffic on Route 250. Actions to be taken in the next five years would include traffic signal coordination between the High Street and Route 20 intersections, as well as greater headways on the existing Charlottesville Transit Service Route 10 to Pantops. Actions to take place before 2025 would include expanded public transportation to connect the Pantops area with Route 29 north in the County, as well as further planning efforts to identify other crossings of the Rivanna River in the future.

Grimm also said in the short-term, the Polo Grounds and Proffit Road alignments should be included in UNJAM 2035 long range plan as “unfunded needs,” and that detailed engineering work and environment studies should be conducted on Pen Park Alternate 3. In the long-term, construction would begin on Alternate 3 while detailed planning work would begin on Alternate 1 and Alternate 2. Grimm said he thought it was important to recognize the work that has already going into exploring those roads.

“At one time those were clearly identified as free-standing independent options, and I think now what we’ve seen through the analysis and the discussion is that they’re really elements of the larger ultimate system,” Grimm said.  The County’s transportation planner, Juandiego Wade, also pointed out that the Committee had suggested recommending that the County take steps to preserve the right of way for those alignments for eventual construction. Mark Graham, the County’s Director of Community Development, said that would require a change to Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan.

“If we don’t put it into our land use plan, if properties out there come in and apply for conservation easements, effectively blocking the ability to build that road in the future, we won’t have a basis for recommending against that,”  Graham said.

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch (left) and Mark Graham, Albemarle County's Director of Community Development

Ken Boyd (Rivanna), Chairman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, said he wanted to add a caveat to the recommendation for Alternate 3 to make sure that the eventual alignment chosen would be the one “least invasive” to Pen Park. “I just want to make sure that it gets  to the public and the Board and the Council that they recognize that was a very important part of our discussion and public input,” Boyd said.

Because the Eastern Connector is still in the conceptual phase, it is not yet known if the road would be a primary or secondary road under the Virginia Department of Transportation.  The designation would carry funding implications, as primary roads are more likely to be funded. Grimm suggested that whatever the designation, the more jurisdictions that can contribute funding to the project, the more likely the road can get funded. However, he said primary roads generally connect two communities

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch, who continues to represent Charlottesville on the Committee, said he did not think that the Committee had met the goals set forth for it. The Request for Proposals for the study states:

“The successful project will result in the design of several alternative road alignments that will provide a connection between US 250 East of Route 20 and US 29 between Rio Road and Proffit Road. Study shall provide a thorough assessment of issues related to each alignment and a recommendation on preferred alignment based on analysis and direction provided during project.”

“And I don’t see that we’ve done that,” Lynch said. “I’m having difficulty figuring out what we can really say that we’ve accomplished in these last 18 months or however long it’s been.  We knew going into this that we had some options and that it looked like the closer option would move more traffic, and that’s kind of what we’re saying now, that we have this alternative that could go through the park, it could go to the north, or it could go to the south, but we don’t really want to show you where because that would be politically difficult.”

Lynch went on to say that the Committee had done nothing more than reproduce how the UNJAM 2025 plan describes the potential Eastern Connector – “a big blob” that only vaguely shows where the road might go. Instead, he wanted to depict a specific route such as the one he advocated in November – a two-lane road that utilized an existing access road straight through the middle of Pen Park.

City Resident John Pfaltz disagreed, and said the Committee’s recommendation of a four-lane road across the Rivanna River was a step forward. The Committee made that determination in April after reviewing traffic data from PBS&J which showed a four-lane road would take more cars off of Route 250.

“I think we’re coming out with a pretty strong statement,” Pfaltz said. “I think this is a fairly large step forward in kind of a difficult political situation.”

But Lynch said the recommendation would provide political cover for elected officials to do nothing.  He said a four-lane road through Pen Park would be controversial, and reminded the Committee that the Meadowcreek Parkway was originally a four-lane road but was only accepted by City Council after the plan was dropped to two lanes. Lynch said he wanted to be able to issue a minority opinion stating his opposition to a four-lane Eastern Connector.

“Having lived here for 27, 28 years I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on what’s feasible and what’s an excuse to do nothing,” Lynch said. He told Committee members that he wanted to recommend something that could get built.

Juandiego Wade, the County’s Transportation Planner reminded Lynch that the Committee had looked at over a dozen alternatives and narrowed it down to 3 that would be presented to the Board and Council. He said elected officials may well decide to go with a two-lane version.

“It’s kind of late in the game to say we’ve not done what we were asked to do,” Wade said. He said Alternate 3 was an alignment, not a detailed construction plan.

Lewis Grimm of PBS&J said that at one point, there were three conceptual options for the Pen Park alignment. Two skirted the edges of the park, and one went directly through the park.  He said these concepts could potentially be resurrected if it were the will of the Board and City Council. Pfaltz suggested incorporating the three concepts into the recommendation, which seemed to satisfy Lynch.

“That advances the ball a little further,” Lynch said. He was also receptive to the suggestion of County Planning Commission Chairman Cal Morris that the Committee specifically recommend the Comprehensive Plan changes suggested by Graham.

Grimm and his team will make one more series of refinements based on input at the meeting. The Steering Committee will reconvene after Labor Day to go over those changes before the final recommendations are presented to the Board and City Council.

The project leader also the Committee that they were planning for a long-term project, or series of projects, and that they should keep in mind an adage he learned early in his career.

“No project worthy of implementation ever happens until it is old enough to vote,” Grimm said.

Sean Tubbs

Three options to be recommended for Eastern Connector

The Steering Committee overseeing a corridor location study for the proposed Eastern Connector has agreed to recommend three routes for the proposed road. The Committee will meet again in late May to review the presentation that the consultant will give to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and the Charlottesville City Council later this year.

Both jurisdictions contributed $250,000 to hire the firm PBS&J  to oversee the study, which was charged with identifying a minimum of three corridors for the proposed road which steering committee members acknowledged would not be constructed for decades.

The routes to be recommended are:

• Route 20 to  Rio Road via Pen Park (2 lane or 4 lane)
• Polo Grounds Road (reserve as transportation corridor)
• Profitt Road Relocated (reserve as transportation corridor)

At its previous meeting in March, the Committee had asked PBS&J to calculate how much additional traffic capacity would be provided if these roads were built as four-lane roads, as opposed to the original expectation of a 2-lane connector road. Steering Committee members received a packet filled with tables predicting traffic volumes for 2025 under dozens of possible permutations, up to a completely theoretical 8 lane Pen Park route.  According to these tables, a 2-lane Pen Park Route would carry over 16,000 vehicles a day, whereas 4 lanes would carry 22,000. 

“There’s a certain demand to move back and forth across the [Rivanna] river,” said Lewis Grimm with PBS&J. Currently the Route 250 bypass is the only way for vehicles in the urban ring to cross the river. The MPO’s UNJAM 2025 traffic forecast projects a traffic volume of 65,500 vehicles a day over Free Bridge. Grimm said the construction of a four-lane Pen Park route, which would include a new bridge over the Rivanna, would reduce that figure to 54,800. But would that be enough to justify building the road?

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch said that would still technically represent a failing level of service according to VDOT’s methodology.  Mark Graham, Director of Community Development for Albemarle County, said the public would not support the construction of a road if the traffic forecast still shows a failure.

“None of these scenarios is going to improve the existing condition,” Graham said. “We’re only talking about how much worse it’s going to get… if we come out and the message comes across that none of these is going to improve the existing situation, we’re D.O.A.”

Lynch said there had to be a way to explain that to the public.  Grimm suggested it would be possible to present the data in such a way that would describe when traffic congestion would be worse, possibly by depicting the growth of peak periods over time. As an example, Albemarle County Planning Commission

Chairman Cal Morris (Rivanna) said Pantops is now experiencing a third rush hour at mid-day, as people who work there drive around in search of a bite to eat.  Grimm said he has seen the phenomenon in other areas, where new suburban multi-use centers are built without a place to serve lunch.

County Transportation Planner Juandiego Wade asked the Committee how they felt they should proceed. Should they  move on to a public  information hearing such as the one held in November of last year, or present to the Board and Council? After some discussion, they opted to go to the elected officials first for a presentation.

Lynch said he felt it necessary to explain to the public why the committee sought the data for a four-lane road.

“We wanted to justify to ourselves that the demand is really there… and we can look at this and say yes, there is a lot more demand  and if we build larger roads, they would get used. Whether or not those roads are politically feasible to build, that’s a whole other question,” Lynch said. He warned it would be difficult to translate a spreadsheet with data to the public, and that it would be hard to construct the political will to build a new road. 

Albemarle County Supervisor Ken Boyd (Rivanna) asked his fellow Steering Committee members if they felt they had been charged with determining the political feasibility of the roads. Lynch said no, but he said the committee should recommend options that can actually get built.

“I don’t want to put a solution on the table that we know is a non-starter,” Lynch said.  He suggested the Committee consider City Council’s recommendation to evaluate a transit-only option for the Eastern Connector.

Grimm said transit could be a viable option, but that the community would have to display the political will to support an expensive transit-only option, as well as a willingness to actually use it.  Lynch said he felt Charlottesville would be more inclined to support a transit-only link than a four-lane road. Boyd said he would be more interested in a satellite system of buses on Pantops to help get people around during the day.  City Resident John Pfaltz said transit was a separate but related issue, and Boyd said the Regional Transit Authority study currently under way would cover much of that ground.

Pfaltz also said he would recommend the Polo Grounds and Proffit Road Relocated alternatives be studied, even though the traffic forecast data shows that neither would be as effective as the Pen Park route.

“I’d love to see this committee lay it out and say these roads will be built sometime in the future so that the land is not preempted by easements, and so that people know that those roads are going to go in at some time, and it doesn’t come as a big surprise,” Pfaltz.  Wade said elements of those two roads are already in the county’s Six Year Plan, though they are not currently strategic priorities.

Lynch said he thought that was a good idea.

“Call it a transportation corridor or something and say we can’t justify it in 2025, but we know looking at the County build-out patterns it’s going to be there at some point, “ Lynch said.

Grimm reminded the Committee that the MPO is currently updating its long range plan, and that those solutions chould be considered as part of that process.  The UNJAM 2035 process begins on May 10 with a half-day regional summit.

Boyd said his fellow Supervisors would be cautious about reserving corridors.

“If we start planning transportation corridors, development is going to follow along these corridors,” Boyd said, adding that the County’s policy is not to build roads in rural areas.

Cal Morris said he wanted the steering committee to send the message that the eventual Eastern Connector is “a first step in a multi-step operation” to increase the area’s transportation capacity.

The Steering Committee will next meet on May 30, 2008, with appearances before the City Council and the Board of Supervisors to follow in the summer. Boyd said the Board would likely not hold a public hearing on the Eastern Connector until it takes up its Six Year Secondary Road Plan next winter.

Sean Tubbs

Eastern Connector won’t be a “silver bullet”; part of larger complex puzzle

Lewis Grimm of PBS&J

The Eastern Connector Steering Committee met on March 28, 2008 for a discussion of whether any of the three remaining route alternatives would be effective in relieving traffic congestion on Route 250, the region’s main road for east-west local traffic. This was the first time the Committee has met since the Charlottesville City Council expressed their concern over the direction of the study .

At the last Steering Committee meeting in February, Lewis Grimm of the engineering firm PBS&J was directed to further study the possibility of making improvements on Route 250 to see if they would have any effect on congestion.  According to County Transportation Planner Juandiego Wade, the committee did not direct PBS&J to develop these into full alternatives, but simply wanted more information.

However, City staff grew concerned when they read Grimm’s 21-page letter detailing how certain concepts would affect the traffic model.  The concepts include widening Free Bridge to 6 lanes, widening High Street in the City to four lanes as it approaches Route 250, and building a new bridge south of Route 250. These concepts have already been dismissed by the Committee.

No sitting Councilor sits on the Committee, though former Councilor Kevin Lynch’s
appointment remains valid.  However, Council voted in early March to send a message to the consultant, PBS&J, that any alternative that went through the City would not be considered by them to be a viable alternative. The March 4, 2008 letter reads:

“Some of these alternatives may be worth exploring as part of other studies, but we do not feel that they address the goals of this particular study or problem…The City entered into a partnership with Albemarle County to study a way to move traffic from Route 29 North to Pantops and back that did not go through the City road system. Studies have shown this to be an ever increasing travel movement in the County that has never been adequately addressed…”

Council’s letter was the starting point for the Steering Committee’s March meeting. Grimm asked the committee if they needed any further clarification on what he had submitted, and if they had any questions about the City’s letter.

Mark Graham, Albemarle County’s Director of Community Development, said he never expected the Route 250 improvements to stand-alone as the only alternative, but a recognition that none of the alternatives that were taken to the public last fall (Route 20 to Rio Road via Pen Park, Polo Grounds, and Proffit Road Relocated) would be effective in relieving traffic congestion on Free Bridge.

“One of the County’s main objectives with this whole exercise is to bring 250 to an acceptable level of service,” Graham said. “I really saw what was being proposed with the Route 250 improvements as supplemental  or part of a package of improvements.”

Graham said it was important for the community to identify a short-term, mid-term and long-term answer to address congestion at Free Bridge, given that the current funding picture would prevent any of the roadway alignments from being built for several years if not decades.
He suggested spot improvements to Route 250 as short-term solutions, and an Eastern Connector could be a mid-term approach.

Members of the Committee listen to Grimm's explanations

Chairman Ken Boyd (Rivanna) of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors said he did not understand why City leaders were concerned. “Our traffic [data] indicate that there’s more traffic to alleviate by somehow providing for those people who are going to and from the City,” Boyd said.

Grimm went on to explain how the Pen Park option would attract approximately 14,000 vehicles per day from Route 250, most of which would be diverted from Free Bridge. Graham pointed out that Grimm’s traffic model shows that the Pen Park route would also attract an additional 6,000 vehicles a day to Free Bridge, possibly making the situation there worse.

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch pointed out that the diversion is constrained because the road called for in the Eastern Connector study would be restricted to two lanes. So far, Grimm’s traffic forecast model has not calculated the effect of a 4-lane Eastern Connector.

“If we said a four-lane facility, then we would see a lot more cars that would be taking that location. What the model shows is that there is more than enough vehicles making that movement to saturate whatever facility we build there,” Lynch said. In fact, City Traffic Engineer Jeannie Alexander said her numbers projected a 2-lane Eastern Connector would open with a failing level of service.

After some discussion, the Committee agreed to direct Grimm to perform additional analysis of traffic model based on four-lanes, not just for the Pen Park Route, but also for Polo Grounds Road and Proffit Road Relocated. These “sensitivity tests” will not be considered as full alternatives, but the modeling will provide more information.

Graham pointed again at the numbers which show Free Bridge’s traffic volume increasing, no matter which option is selected. “My question is, is that a function of the limitation of the connector or not?”

Grimm reminded Graham that the Eastern Connector should be viewed as one piece of a large complex puzzle. “There is no silver bullet that one road is going to solve all the problems over the next 20, 30, 40 50 years. There will be multiple improvements that will need to be made,” Grimm said. The total vehicle miles travelled in the whole jurisdictional area of the MPO are projected to increase by 52% between 2005 and 2025, according to the traffic model.

County Planning Commissioner Cal Morris points out why he supports a Pen Park route

Albemarle County Planning Commission Chairman and Key West resident Cal Morris said that of the three solutions taken to the public in the fall, the Pen Park solution was the most viable solution, because of the three, it would be connected to the most mature infrastructure in the area. Boyd said he agreed, but that the community has a history of spending a long time planning roads that don’t get built for decades. Morris said that’s why it was important for the steering committee to reach consensus on depicting three alternatives.

Boyd said he did not want to discourage further study, but that it was almost time for the Committee to report back to the City Council and Board of Supervisors with three alternatives.  Morris said he thought the Committee was almost ready to select three, and he was ready to recommend one as a top choice. City Planning Commissioner Mike Farruggio said he wanted more information on a four lane Pen Park route, despite concerns by Kevin Lynch that it would be politically impossible to build that road.  

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch and City Planning Commissioner Mike Farruggio

“How in the world do you govern effectively if you do the math, and it says what needs to be done is a four-lane road to connect to Rio Road to [reduce] traffic and plan for the next 20 years, but we’re not going to do it because it’s unpalatable to some folks,” Farruggio asked. He pointed out the purpose of the Committee was to recommend the road based on the data at hand, and that a decision would be up to Council and the Board.

Graham also asked for modeling of the High Street bridge connection, which would intersect with an extended South Pantops Road that will eventually connect to Peter Jefferson Place. He said he knew that the City would not support this route, but that he needed to show the Board of Supervisors how effective the corridor might be. “It’s not an alternative, but when we set this up, we did call for a modeling [of a High Street bridge],” Graham said.  

The City letter also requested that transit options be studied. The Committee agreed with Grimm that the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Council would be better equipped to evaluate that possibility in connection with the Regional Transit Authority study.

The next meeting of the steering committee will be on April 25. The Committee will decide at that time whether to hold one more public information session before passing their recommendations on to the Council and Board.

Sean Tubbs

City Council: No Eastern Connector alignment through Charlottesville

The Charlottesville City Council wants the consultant overseeing the Eastern Connector alignment study to eliminate options that involve widening the Route 250 bypass or building new bridges heading onto the City of Charlottesville. Council agreed at their meeting on March 3rd to send a letter to Lewis Grimm of PBS&J outlining their views.

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The City and the County each contributed $250,000 to the study, which has been underway since December of 2006. The steering committee overseeing the study last met in February, and directed Grimm to revisit several options that had previously been tabled.

Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris brought the matter up under other business, and asked Neighborhood and Community Development Services Director Jim Tolbert to explain why the City is concerned about some of the alternatives that are being moved forward.

“If you remember, the Eastern Connector objectives where to find a way to move traffic from 29 North and Pantops back and forth without going through the center of Charlottesville,” Tolbert said. But Tolbert said PBS&J’s latest report recommends four alternatives that are not acceptable to the City. These include widening Free Bridge, widen the Route 250 bypass through the City, build a new bridge from the Pantops Shopping Center to High Street, or build a new bridge north of the Free Bridge.

“We were concerned that those completely ignored and took the focus off of what the real study was supposed to look at,” Tolbert said. He added that those options should be outside the scope of the Eastern Connector study, and sought an opinion from Council. “There may not be an alternative that accomplishes the goals of the Eastern Connector, and if so, we need to know that.”

Norris asked his fellow councilors if they thought the consultant should be told to examine other options, accept the recommendations as information, or declare the Eastern Connector study to be over.

“I think we need to state the fact that we don’t want another road coming through the City,” said Councilor Julian Taliaferro. “That would defeat the whole purpose of building connector roads.” Taliaferro asked how the consultant had strayed from the original scope of the study.

Tolbert said he thought PBS&J is confronting an issue of basic geography. “I think our traffic engineer would tell you that if you look at the numbers, the Eastern Connector could have a place as the most important road that could be built to relieve traffic in Charlottesville, but there’s nowhere to put it. The County has allowed development to occur in the last 25 years essentially in every feasible place that we’d put it,” Tolbert said.

“Our $250,000 is not speaking too loud,” Taliaferro said in response.

Councilor David Brown wanted more information on two of the alignments that did not come through the City – the Proffit Road or Polo Grounds Road route. “I’d like to have some fleshing out of that information,” he said. Brown said he supported sending the letter to the consultant to point out that a Charlottesville-based route would not be acceptable to Council. Councilor Satyendra Huja agreed.

Councilor Holly Edwards said she would like to see a renewed effort to fighting the traffic problem by getting people out of their cars.

Mayor Dave Norris said he did not want to waste any more resources trying to plan a road that could not be built, especially in an environment with few transportation dollars available for construction of a new road.

“The next major transportation investment in our region should not be another huge swath of very expensive asphalt that we’re not going to have the money to build anyway, and there’s no political will to build anyway,” Norris said.

At the last meeting of the Eastern Connector Steering Committee in February, former City Councilor Kevin Lynch said he thought the City would come around to the idea of another bridge over the Rivanna River into Charlottesville, but only if the County committed to aligning the Eastern Connector through Pen Park (Alignment 3).  City Council did not discuss the merits or challenges of a Pen Park solution last night.  Pen Park is in the City of Charlottesville. 

The next Eastern Connector Steering Committee meeting is expected to meet again by the first week of April, though no date has yet been set.

Sean Tubbs

Steering Committee directs consultant to study other options for Eastern Connector

Lewis Grimm of PBS&J

Since December 2006, an Eastern Connector alignment study has been underway in conjunction with the firm PBS&J to determine possible routes for a new road to connect the northern section of US 29 in Albemarle County with the growing Pantops area. Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville each contributed $250,000 to the study, and a steering committee made up of elected officials and citizens has been providing direction.

But, as time runs out on the contract, a specific alignment plan has still not been finalized. Yet, at their meeting on February 8, 2008, the Steering Committee directed lead engineer Lewis Grimm of PBS&J to revisit other options that had previously been tabled, as well as to search for potential new alignments to connect Route 20 with Rio Road that don’t affect Pen Park.  A  bridge connecting the Pantops Shopping center area to the City near East High Street and Meade Avenue and the alignment of the Eastern Connector through Pen Park are both getting further study.

In November, members of the public overwhelmingly rejected three proposed alternatives when they were presented at two informational meetings. Two of these potential routes made improvements to existing roads, Proffit Road (Alt 1) and Polo Grounds Road (Alt 2), in order to satisfy the parameters of the study. The third ran the Eastern Connector straight through Pen Park (Alt 3). According to the data presented at those two November meetings, none of these three options would save motorists much time.

So when the steering committee met again in December of last year, they directed PBS&J’s Lewis Grimm to revisit the traffic model upon which those numbers were based. Staff was directed to further analyze traffic patterns to see if the three alternatives for the Eastern connector would alleviate traffic conditions at Free Bridge during times of peak usage.

At their next meeting in February, the steering committee heard updates from Grimm and County staff, but County Transportation Planner Juandiego Wade said he is still working with PBS&J to further study the traffic model results. In the meantime, he suggested that the committee work to refine all possible alternatives, because of the need to produce a report sometime this year.

The traffic model assumes the Eastern Connector will be a two-lane collector road, parts of which would be limited access. Grimm says there is a precedent for a road on the secondary system to be limited access, which means no new driveways. “A lot of it gets down to being a public policy and land use control decision,” Grimm said.

City Planning Commissioner Mike Farruggio said it would be crucial for both localities to set that policy in stone as soon as possible to prevent future decision-makers from allowing driveway cuts on an expensive road. “We want to make it efficient for the next fifty years, and not the next fifteen,” Farrugio said.

Shortly into the meeting, Wade asked the Committee if other alternatives that were previously dismissed should be revisited.

“We know that the public didn’t particularly like [the Pen Park Route (alternative 3)],” he said, pointing out the regulatory hurdles that will have to be overcome to put the road through the park.

Grimm suggested several alternatives could have merit, but stressed to the committee that these were still concepts to be sketched out.

First, reconfigure the Route 20 to Rio Road (Alternative 3) option to show how it might travel on the northern or southern edges of the park. He also showed the committee some preliminary numbers on how adding another bridge over the Rivanna River would affect traffic volume. But he also suggested the possibility of having a four-lane connector, predicting a two-lane road would quickly become congested with high volume.
Grimm spent several minutes showing the cumulative effect of this possibility in addressing congestion on the road network as a whole.  He said Free Bridge would continue to have a failing level of service even with the Pen Park route, because it is a “critical link” for many people’s travel paths. Farrugio said the bridge was “super-congested during the peak period” and will continue to be so.

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch (left) and Supervisor Ken Boyd (right)

Steering Committee member and City Resident John Pfaltz said it would be very hard politically to put four lanes through Pen Park. Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ken Boyd (Rivanna) pointed out that the community has not accepted the Eastern Connector even as a two-lane road yet.

Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch, who continues to sit on the committee, disagreed with Grimm and said a two-lane road could handle the volume with no problem if it were designed right.

Wade said he thought the Pen Park route was the wrong way to address traffic on Route 250, given that the federal government will have to approve the placement of a highway through a park it helped fund. He threw out the idea of putting money for the road into transit.

“What we really need is that once [westbound motorists on Route 250] get over that bridge is to have more roadway, and that’s going to be next to impossible, so if we know that that traffic is coming from here, trying to get to downtown… maybe the answer is aggressive park and ride or something, I don’t know.”
Mike Farruggio later would suggest that this idea be worked into an alternative to be studied.

That prompted Grimm to show more data showing how different permutations add to relief in other parts of the network, and that one aspect would only contribute to the eventual solution.

“I think the concept of a linkage of Rio Road and Route 20 is a viable concept. The question is, are there other alternative alignments besides this generic one that could have similar results in terms of improving the transportation system’s operation, but without having those significant impacts on the park?” asked Grimm. Grimm pointed out that the best time for a community to plan other network changes is at a time when one major project such as the Eastern Connector.

Lynch said it was safe to say that Alternatives 1 or 2 are not prudent alternatives because they do not address the traffic issue.

Farruggio wanted to know what concepts were still on the table. “Are we still talking about trying to widen 250?  Are we still talking about trying to bring a bridge?” he asked.

Mark Graham, the County’s Director of Community Development, said Route 250 would still be congested as a result of the Pen Park route. “And for me, that was still a primary part of the purpose of this whole study,” he said.  Graham said the Pen Park route could be considered as the foundation for a greater solution, which could involve another bridge or not. “Maybe we look at more of a longer term approach to this,” he said.

Lynch said that he felt he could outline the City’s position, even though he is no longer a Councilor.   
“Once you have some commitment by the County to build some roads outside of the City, [the Eastern Connector,]  the Southern Parkway, the Fontaine/Sunset Connector, then I think you’ll see some willingness to go back and say ‘Okay, what about that bridge from Meade Avenue and High Street to Pantops?’”

But Wade said an effort should be made to build the best possible road. “I don’t think we should just build a road because it’s our turn if it doesn’t address the problem,” he said.

Boyd pointed out that the County has been making efforts to build its share of the regional road network, but some of the most effective choices involve building connections to the city, such as bridge south of Free Bridge.

“I still believe that’s a critical piece of alleviating the pressure on Route 250. And Kevin, we are building roads. We’ve got proffer for a road from Peter Jefferson Place all the way  down to Pantops Shopping Center. We’ve also made some preliminary expansions with Pantops Shopping Center people, I think they’re probably at least willing to talk to us about some renovation there, and how they’d like to bring it right up to the river...” He said the study had to at least model the possibility so that its effect on traffic congestion would be known.   

Lynch said he would be willing to consider the bridge, if the County commits to Alternative 3, which he said could get federal approval if the argument was framed properly.

“I do not see that as a road through the park, the park already has a road through it, with a three-lane facility. I see that as a bridge over the golf course which is at the end of the road. It’s basically a bridge project, it’s not a road project,” Lynch said. When Farruggio disagreed with Lynch’s assessment that the access road is a real road, the former City Councilor responded: “But that’s how you get projects done, you describe them on the terms that you want them to be described and not by the terms that your opponents
want them to be described.”

Towards the end of the meeting, Wade asked for specific directions to send to Grimm. Boyd said he wanted more analysis of the effects of a southern bridge that would extend the County’s new parallel road into the City.  “Whether or not we carry it forward… I think it’s valuable information.”

Farruggio said the Committee had a responsibility to look at it, and also offered the suggestion of looking at efforts to stop cars from coming into the City all together, by providing a parking garage with a transit center. Albemarle County Planning Commissioner Cal Morris (Rivanna) said he wanted more information on the southern bridge, as well as more information on boosting capacity on Route 250 on Free Bridge and beyond. Grimm pointed out that it was important to take political realities into effect before evaluating too many of these options in too much detail.

Lynch also pointed out that neither the state or federal government was likely to give the region hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on transportation projects that only address local issues.

Grimm was also tasked to see if there are any potential alignments to connect Route 20 with Rio Road that do not take the Pen Park route. Alternative 3 will also be reconfigured to see what would happen if improvements were made to Route 250 as well as a southern bridge.

Grimm said he would follow up via e-mail with the various descriptions that he thought he heard from the steering committee members.

A transit-oriented option will also be formulated, but Grimm said: “If you really expect to see a significant reduction in the number of people who drive themselves to work or shop or whatever in downtown Charlottesville, free parking has to totally disappear, and the price of parking you provide has to go up significantly.”

Sean Tubbs

Data said to support Pen Park alignment for Eastern Connector

Last month, the Eastern Connector Steering Committee asked for more justification for the road project that is proposed to connect Route 29 N to the Pantops area.  At their monthly meeting on January 23, 2008, the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) got their first look at two of the answers--Our traffic problems have local origins and one specific Eastern Connector proposal is projected to significantly outperform all the others.  Consultant Lewis Grimm made his case to the MPO that the data shows an alignment of the Eastern Connector in the Pen Park area would have the greatest impact on reducing peak hour traffic volumes on Route 250 at Free Bridge.

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The City and County are jointly funding an alignment study to determine the Eastern Connector’s preferred location.  From more than a dozen alignment options, the Steering Committee has whittled it down to three different two-lane alternatives.  In late 2007, the public and policymakers expressed skepticism about the benefits any of the alternatives would provide to travel time.  The average improvement was projected to be from 24 seconds to two minutes for a car traveling from Hollymead to Pantops on the Eastern Connector. 

First, Grimm’s firm decided to revisit data collected in 1999 when VDOT conducted an in-depth license plate survey that examined the origin and destination of vehicles at 26 different survey locations in and around Charlottesville.

Grimm reported that the 1999 study showed that traffic was very dispersed in the area.  This runs counter, he said, to the public perception that lots of traffic is trying to get from Route 29 N to I-64 East towards Richmond.  “That’s one of the key findings…other than a few locations it is a fairly dispersed pattern,” said Grimm.  The license plate survey shows that 5% of all vehicle trips are really though trips, those vehicles starting outside the area and finishing outside the area.  Grimm told Charlottesville Tomorrow that this data was reviewed to address the public perception that it was an Eastern Bypass that was needed, and not a new local connector road.

Reflecting on the license plate survey, Supervisor Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett) described the traffic congestion as a local problem, “Look around the room, the problem is us. It’s not them.  It’s not someone from Greene County.”  Grimm emphasized that the Eastern Connector is a road intended to solve a local problem and not regional traffic flows.

The second major piece of feedback from the public was concern that the data did not show what would happen to traffic congestion during rush hour periods.  So a team of transportation engineers in PBS&J’s Atlanta office was called upon to examine the local traffic model and calculate what impact each Eastern Connector alignment would have during peak traffic volumes.  Grimm said he wanted to put his firm’s experience in other urban areas to use on the Charlottesville data.  “We decided to look through our library and find adjustment factors that would give us a reasonable estimate of the peak hour movements.”

Based upon this work, Grimm reported to the MPO that, of the three alignment alternatives, the Pen Park option would remove the most traffic, 13.6% of the volume projected to be at Free Bridge on Route 250 in the year 2025.  Travel time savings during rush hour have not yet been calculated.  Without the new road, traffic volumes there are projected to grow from 48,210 vehicles per day in the year 2005 to 68,340 vehicles per day in the year 2025, or a 41.8% increase.

The next public meeting of the Eastern Connector Steering Committee is scheduled for February 8, 2008 where they are expected to receive a similar presentation.

Brian Wheeler