City’s portion of Meadowcreek Parkway advertised for bid

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Another milestone in the planning of the Meadowcreek Parkway has been reached. On Tuesday, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) opened the bidding process for McIntire Road Extended, the name for the City’s portion of the parkway. 

"We decided to go ahead and advertise now so we can take advantage of the full construction season,” said VDOT spokesman Lou Hatter in an interview. He added that VDOT hopes it will receive bids considerably lower than the $5.575 million estimate for the construction of the road.

When built, the road will carry traffic for a third of a mile from the Route 250 bypass to the Albemarle County border at Melbourne Road. The county’s 1.3 mile section of the road is already under construction.

The project was advertised even though the Army Corps of Engineers has not yet finished its analysis of how the road’s impacts to McIntire Park, other historic resources, and the watershed will be mitigated. Hatter said VDOT will not award a bid until that “Section 106 process” is completed.  A spokesman for the Corps could not be reached for comment.

Peter Kleeman, a former City Council candidate and long-time parkway opponent said he thinks VDOT’s action is premature.

“The whole notion of the Section 106 process is to inform the design by taking into account how historic resources are impacted,” Kleeman said. "In short, it's not a very historic-resource sensitive action.”

Bids on the project will be taken through January 27, 2010. A contract will be awarded to the lowest qualified bidder. Construction is expected to be completed by December 2011, around the same time that Albemarle’s portion is completed.

The project’s intersection with the Route 250 bypass is a separate project being administered by the City of Charlottesville. On Monday, Council approved a design for that grade-separated interchange.

Grant funding could speed up Hillsdale Drive extension

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Conceptual drawing of the northern terminus of the Hillsdale Drive extension (Source: City of Charlottesville)

One of the region’s top transportation priorities could move forward sooner than expected if the City of Charlottesville receives a $14.2 million federal stimulus grant. Construction of the Hillsdale Drive extension is not expected to begin until 2018 at the earliest if the community has to rely on funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation.

When built, the Hillsdale Drive extension will serve as a parallel road to U.S. 29 by connecting Greenbrier Road with Hydraulic Road. It would be built through the parking lots of several shopping centers, including Seminole Square. The road is being designed for local traffic and will have a maximum speed limit of 25 miles per hour, as well as sidewalks and bike lanes.

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VDOT has a current cost estimate of $30.5 million for the project. That figure includes $3 million for design, $18.6 for acquisition of right of way, and $8.8 million for construction. However, the project was removed from VDOT’s Six-Year Plan for secondary and urban road funding due to budget cuts.
The project manager for the City, Jeanette Janiczek, acknowledged that funding is an issue at a recent joint meeting of the Albemarle and Charlottesville Planning Commissions. She said the City is working with property owners to get them to donate right of way or at least sell it at less than market value.

At least one of the property owners is receptive to the idea.

"We've always said that we would be very accommodating in terms of right of way acquisition," said Chuck Rotgin, president of the Great Eastern Management Company which owns the Seminole Square Shopping Center.

One obstacle to the goal of reducing the right of way costs for the project is a plan by the owners of the Regal Cinema to expand in their existing location. Though the plans were announced in April, the City has not yet received a site plan. Officials with Regal Cinema could not be reached for comment.

With no additional money coming from the state to pay for the road until at least 2016, Janiczek said the City is applying for grants to raise money.  One opportunity is the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, part of the economic stimulus package. The City applied for a $14.2 million grant and expects a decision to be made by mid-February.

If that effort is successful, Janiczek said the road could be constructed within two years. Meanwhile, preliminary design work continues and a public hearing is scheduled for spring of next year.

Rotgin had not heard about the grant possibility, but said he thought Charlottesville’s application might have a chance.

"This may be one of those projects that's near shovel-ready," Rotgin said.

First phase to be built next year

The southern terminus of the road will be built next year as part of the new Whole Foods being built near the K-Mart. The City is helping the developer finance the $3.1 construction costs of that section of the road

“We expect shovels any day now to begin on that section,” said Missy Creasy, Planning Manager for the City of Charlottesville. The new Whole Foods is expected to be finished by the end of 2010 according to Janiczek.

As part of the new road, the existing traffic signal at the Kroger and K-mart parking lots will be removed in favor of a new one at Hillsdale Drive.

Facing new state cuts, County officials hope to avoid delay for Jarmans Gap road improvements

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Thursday, December 3, 2009

For years, Albemarle County and the Virginia Department of Transportation have been planning to add sidewalks and bike lanes on Jarmans Gap Road in western Albemarle County. Those improvements are anticipated in the Crozet Master Plan, which was adopted five years ago to address how that community would grow.

An excerpt from the brochure handed out at VDOT's March 2006 design public hearing (Source: Albemarle County/VDOT)

However, rising cost estimates and decreased funding from the state have repeatedly pushed back the project’s start date. The delays could continue if the county cannot close what VDOT officials say is a $900,000 gap that must be filled before the project can be put out to bid.    

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In 2004, Jarmans Gap Road had a traffic count of 2,500 vehicles per day. That number is expected to grow to at around 5,800 by 2020.

Earlier this decade, County officials made the project a priority in order to support development in Crozet. Ever since, a portion of the county’s share of secondary road funds have gone into a fund to pay for the road’s design and construction. Currently there is a balance of $12.6 million in the fund, according to Allan Sumpter, the administrator of VDOT’s Culpeper District.

When a design public hearing was held on the project in March of 2006, the project’s cost was estimated at $10.3 million. By October of this year, that estimate had climbed to $16 million.

Next week, the Commonwealth Transportation Board will vote on a $850 million reduction in funding for the state’s six-year road improvement plan. Nearly $7 million in funding is slated to be reduced from the Jarmans Gap project through 2015.

Sumpter said he has been carefully monitoring financing for the project in order to build what he called an “insurance buffer” against the increasing estimates and anticipated funding cuts. He said if the county had actually received the full amount in the six year plan, the project would have a $3.5 million buffer today.

In October, the County was awarded $1 million from VDOT’s revenue sharing program because it put up $1.1 million of its own money. That leaves a $900,000 gap, according to Sumpter. 

Supervisor Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett) said VDOT should put the project out to bid now in order to take advantage of the recession. He said contractors are dramatically reducing the price of their bids in order to find work.

“We may be able to obtain a bid that in and of itself would be $900,000 less than the estimate,” Rooker said.

However, Sumpter said VDOT policy is to require projects to be fully-funded before they can be allowed to proceed to construction. The first step in that process is to ask for bids from contractors.

Rooker said VDOT should consider changing its policies.

“In the current climate, that approach is ridiculous,” Rooker said. “The policy made more sense during a time of inflation and right now we’re in a time of deflation.”

Sumpter said VDOT’s policies are in place to make sure that contractors can be paid. He said VDOT had previously allowed projects to be debt financed, but the agency was paying too much in debt service.

“We just have to make sure we have the money in the bank,” Sumpter said.

VDOT policy also doesn’t allow a project to go to bid until all right of way has been cleared for a road project. Sumpter said all of the required properties should be cleared by early summer and it will take another six months of administrative work before the project can be advertised for bidders.

One of the County’s other active secondary road projects, its portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway, is under construction with an anticipated completion date of fall 2011. Faulconer Construction won an $11.8 million bid for the project, which Sumpter said was lower than had been anticipated for construction.

Amid growth in Crozet, Albemarle seeks to maintain US 250 as a scenic byway

This article is the third in a four-part series on the future of Route 250 published jointly by The Daily Progress and Charlottesville Tomorrow.  Part: One, Two, Three, Four

By Brian Wheeler
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Stacy and Jonathan Hunt looked all over Albemarle County to find their first home. On Free Town Lane, just off U.S. 250 west in Crozet, the young couple found a small home built in 1925 on a lot of less than a quarter acre.

In a wooded area between Western Albemarle High School and R.A. Yancey Lumber Corp., their two-story home had a price and location that were just right.

“We didn’t buy a home in an established development. We bought a home that had been here since the 1920s,” said Jonathan Hunt. “We liked Crozet for what it is today. We didn’t come here saying we wanted more restaurants and stores.”

Five years later, the Free Town neighborhood now finds itself in the middle of a debate about the future character of both Crozet and the U.S. 250 west corridor. The Hunts’ neighbors, who include a number of lifelong residents who trace their ancestry to former slaves who settled there, are concerned about new development, traffic and their quality of life.

It’s a story of concerns that can be found along U.S. 250’s length from Keswick to Crozet, a key stretch of highway that has come under pressure from increasing traffic, but has little state funding for improvements to help drivers or pedestrians and bicyclists.

A new gas station has been proposed for a now vacant lot on the highway that is 300 feet from the Hunts’ front yard. Across the street is the Old Trail Village development in the Crozet growth area. And now, neighbors are also concerned about a proposal to build the Yancey Mills Business Park on 184 acres of mostly rural land that buffers their homes from Interstate 64 to the south.

“It is death by 1,000 cuts and it happens one little development at a time,” said Hunt at a recent neighborhood gathering. “First a gas station, then a Harris Teeter, and before you know it, the character of your community is gone.”

Part of the charm

U.S. 250 in western Albemarle is a Virginia Scenic Byway known today for its rural charm, limited development and mountain views. The highway’s 9.5-mile stretch from Broomley Road near Farmington to Yancey Mills in Crozet features two travel lanes and a central turning or passing lane in all areas except the narrow stretch through Ivy.

Scenic 250 formed as a grassroots organization in 1997 to protect the rural character of the highway. According to steering committee member Scott Peyton, it was a coincidence that the Virginia Department of Transportation launched a pivotal study of 250 that same year.

“It was a watershed moment,” Peyton said. “We had been previously unaware of VDOT’s plans to widen the road.”

VDOT’s final report in January 2000 recommended the widening of 250 west to four lanes between the US 29/250 Bypass near the Bellair neighborhood all the way to the railroad trestle crossing the Mechums River.

Scenic 250 vigorously opposed the road’s widening, a recommendation that VDOT made over the objections of the citizen committee participating in the study. The public argued that it made no sense to widen 250 when it ran parallel to the existing I-64.

With the strong support of Supervisor Sally H. Thomas, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in May 2000 that committed the county to protecting the road as a two-lane scenic corridor all the way west to the county line. VDOT conceded that 250 was used largely for local traffic, and if residents wanted to deal with the congestion, that could be a local choice.

Since 2001, the traffic on 250 west has increased on all the sections measured annually by VDOT. Near Yancey Mills and Old Trail, traffic is up by 28 percent as of 2008. However, the section from Miller School Road to the Mechums River is up 48 percent over the same period, and from there to Ivy it has increased 41 percent.

New developments

Peyton thinks new homes being built in the rural area along 250 pose the greatest threat to the corridor.

“If you look at risks to scenic beauty of 250 west, it is not all tied to commercial development,” Peyton said. “Arguably, high-density residential development poses greater risks.”

In recent years, members of the county’s Route 250 West Task Force have petitioned unsuccessfully for the Architectural Review Board to gain more authority to regulate the appearance of residential developments visible from the corridor. Current and former task force members cited Cory Farms and Foxchase as examples of neighborhoods they wish had been visually buffered from 250.

Other observers interviewed for this story say it is Crozet’s growth and new projects on land zoned long ago for highway commercial that are the critical challenge facing U.S. 250 west.

Justin Beights is vice president of the Beights Development Corp., which is developing Old Trail Village. Old Trail and its adjoining neighborhoods have been approved for about 2,500 homes. According to Beights, the development has around 210 occupied residences today.

Beights said his thinking has changed about U.S. 250’s relationship to his development, because it once was where he wanted more of the commercial activity.

“We proffered a buffer along Route 250, so hopefully at the end of the day you won’t see too much more of Old Trail than you see today,” Beights said. “One of the Crozet master plan’s key components was the limitation of development along Route 250, and that has led us to the first phase of a successful village center [in Old Trail].”

Beights said the higher standards for development should apply to anything new on U.S. 250.

“We were held to a very high standard, and because of that, we have a quality product,” Beights said. “I would be frustrated if someone was not held to those high standards, particularly in a visible place like 250.”

Will Yancey, who has asked the county to consider a proposal to develop rural land outside the growth area and behind the saw mill as a new business park, said he also wants to be sensitive to “visual pollution” along 250.

“Our development would be invisible from Route 250,” Yancey said. “Furthermore, in a growing area like Crozet, which already has potential to double in size, you will need more jobs in and around Crozet, or you face the specter of having to widen 250 from Yancey Mills all the way to Charlottesville.”

Driveway jam

A neighbor of the Hunts, Vicki Whiting, was born and raised in Free Town. Whiting said she has reached the point where she is considering moving.

“I am caught between progress and familiar surroundings,” Whiting said. “The other day I left the house and there was a wall of cars on Route 250 and I couldn’t go either direction. I sat in my driveway for 30 minutes.”

Whiting said Crozet’s growth has made her feel like she is being “bombarded with an influx of people.”

“I feel like I live on a major interstate in the city and that 250 has become just insane,” she said. “I used to walk on 250, but it is not safe anymore.”

Crozet resident Barb Franko is a member of the Route 250 West Task Force who favors greater attention being given to the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists, while at the same time keeping 250 west a two-lane road.

“I would like to see more greenways and bike trails connecting Crozet to Charlottesville,” Franko said. “That would help keep it more scenic in the future, protect the sides of the road from development, and increase the awareness of the people that this is a valuable asset.”

UVa influence on 250 continues to expand

 

This article is the third in a four-part series on the future of Route 250 published jointly by The Daily Progress and Charlottesville Tomorrow.  Part: One, Two, Three, Four

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The growth of the University of Virginia continues to set the tone for the 3-mile length of U.S. 250 from Emmet Street to Broomley Road.

At the eastern end, both the Lewis Mountain neighborhood and commuters are awaiting plans for a new performing arts center, as well as a new intersection.

At the western end, construction continues for a new 50-bed hospital next to UVa’s Northridge medical office building and Moser Radiation Therapy Center.

In between, both Charlottesville and Albemarle County are struggling to find ways to make improvements that will open the road to pedestrians and cyclists.

Ivy Road has become more urban in the hundred years since prominent businessman Hollis Rinehart bought the sprawling Birdwood estate. The Botetourt County native had made his fortune in Charlottesville, and built four mansions for himself and his sons on the northern side of Three Notch’d Road.

Birdwood itself passed through a number of hands before UVa paid $1.5 million for it in the mid-’70s. Originally slated for expansion, a decision was made in the 1980s to build a golf course instead. Later that decade, UVa purchased the Boar’s Head Inn next door.

Although the section of 250 from Broomley to Ednam Drive is not in Albemarle County’s designated growth area, the northern side of the road retains commercial zoning. That has allowed for businesses such as a car dealership, a tractor supply store and at least one garden center.

The Ivy Nursery, located near the Northridge campus, has been open since 1975. The owner said the road has changed “leaps and bounds” ever since.

“When we started, the last traffic light was at Copeley Road,” said George Carter. He said he believes future growth on U.S. 250 would be constrained both by difficult terrain, as well as the county’s growth management policies.

“I don’t think development can happen the way it has on Pantops,” Carter said.

Another traffic signal is expected to one day be installed at the intersection of U.S. 250 and White Gables Pavilions, a 74-unit condominium complex built around one of the Rinehart mansions.

Four-term Albemarle County Supervisor Sally H. Thomas said while traffic has increased on the road, stewardship by the county and groups such as Scenic 250 have allowed it to retain a rural character.

“We’ve managed to keep the Rinehart houses there,” Thomas said. “We’ve managed to keep development back and off the road so you don’t see much difference there when you’re driving along.”

Bypass to Emmet Street

UVa-related uses dominate the entire corridor, but even more so between the 29/250 Bypass and Emmet Street. One future area of redevelopment could be the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital.

“We recognize that the [site] is a valuable community asset and will take that into consideration as we look at options for its future use,” said UVa spokeswoman Carol Wood in an interview.

The University of Virginia Real Estate Foundation purchased the Cavalier Inn in 1998 for future development. Plans for an Arts Gateway were announced to the public in 2007, including space for a concert hall, a museum and theater. However, the project is on “indefinite hold” due to a lack of funding, according to Wood.

Earlier this decade, the Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Association was unsuccessful in an attempt to stop the construction of an 1,180-space parking garage designed to replace other spaces lost to infill development.

Today, the neighborhood’s willingness to embrace the Arts Gateway is colored by the experience with what their signs had called “the 1,200-car monster.”

“The university’s three-football-fields-long parking garage is grotesquely out of scale with the neighborhood, a poor and uninspired use of the space, and an eyesore in one of the main entrance corridors to the university,” said Art Lichtenberger, president of the neighborhood association.

He said the neighborhood has been looking forward to the construction of the Arts Gateway to hide the parking garage from Ivy Road.

To achieve walkability, the neighborhood association has recommended redevelopment of one of the shopping centers to a mixed-use development where parking could be placed behind the buildings.

However, the property manager of the Ivy Square Shopping Center said he doubts people will soon change their habits away from the automobile.

“I don’t believe it’s realistic to de-emphasize the role vehicles play at Ivy Square Shopping Center given the magnitude of traffic which travels on Ivy Road,” said Michael Morris. He agrees that more green space would be desirable, but not at the expense of places for his tenants’ customers to park.

Just down the street from Ivy Square is the University Shopping Center, which opened for business in 1952. The owner of Heinz Musitronics, Steve Hobeck, said the store is an excellent location because of the amount of traffic and visibility, but there are challenges with congestion and signage.

“You get the sense there’s no continuity between the city and the county,” Hobeck said. He’d like consistent sidewalks leading into the county, as well as better signage.

As for redevelopment, Hobeck said he’s never been contacted by anyone wanting to buy his property. Morris said that Ivy Square Shopping Center, as it is, “should last well into the future.”

Bicycle woes

One Charlottesville resident who often commutes on bike to her office near the Boar’s Head Inn recently stopped out of fear.

“I started carpooling with a neighbor and then kind of lost my nerve,” said Nancy Damon, program director of the Virginia Festival of the Book. “I got out of the habit, and then I began to lose my courage.”

Bike lanes in Charlottesville currently stop at the county line.

Albemarle’s Comprehensive Plan calls for the eventual addition of bike lanes on major corridors inside the designated growth areas. However, implementing that goal on Ivy Road could be “many years away,” according to transportation planner Juandiego Wade.

Improvements to U.S. 250 Business are the county’s fourth-highest transportation priority, after the Meadowcreek Parkway, improvements to U.S. 29 and the widening of Route 20 between Interstate 64 and Mill Creek Drive.

In August 2007, University Architect David Neuman asked the city and county to each contribute $1 million for a project to add bike lanes, sidewalks and safer pedestrian crossings along all of Ivy Road.

Neither locality opted to contribute due to a lack of transportation funds. Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker suggested the county might participate if the revenue could come from an “events tax” generated by concerts and other events at the university’s John Paul Jones Arena.

The city’s director of Neighborhood Development Services, Jim Tolbert, pointed out that UVa built bike lanes and made traffic improvements as part of the parking garage project. That’s consistent with UVa’s vision of the road, according to Neuman.

“The university is the only entity to make improvements to better link the mixed-use neighborhoods along the way to the bypass,” Neuman said.

And then there’s the intersection of Emmet Street and Ivy Road. At one point, planners had considered the possibility of replacing the traffic signals with a roundabout.

“It was determined to be very expensive to construct, as well as very unfriendly to bike riders and pedestrians,” Wood said. Instead, the gas station across from the Cavalier Inn will be removed, according to Wood, to allow for the intersection to be expanded with new turn lanes on University Avenue and Emmet Street.

Political problems on Pantops

 

This article is the second in a four-part series on the future of Route 250 published jointly by The Daily Progress and Charlottesville Tomorrow. Part two is published here by permission of The Daily Progress. Part: One, Two, Three, Four

By Rachana Dixit
The Daily Progress
Monday, November 30, 2009

Albemarle County resident Hank Bourguignon has a blunt assessment of the traffic situation outside of the home he has lived in for more than 10 years: nothing will be done, and the problem will persist.

“I will be in my grave before there are solutions to these problems,” said Bourguignon, who lives in the Fontana subdivision on Pantops Mountain and sits on the board of directors of its homeowners association.

Determining how traffic on U.S. 250 on and around Pantops in Albemarle, and subsequently on the U.S. 250 Bypass in Charlottesville, can be relieved is in a deadlock not only from a lack of finances.

City and county leaders for years have been unable to compromise or take unified steps to alleviate the congestion that, all of those involved agree, is only going to get worse, especially as large developments such as the new Martha Jefferson Hospital set up shop.

“[The] Pantops area is booming, and yet, even before a lot of the recent growth, there already were bottlenecks there,” Mayor Dave Norris said. Referring to county officials, he added, “They never should have allowed the rate of growth we’re seeing in that part of the county.”

In 2000, 30,000 vehicles traveled daily on the road between the city’s eastern edge and Route 20, a 0.2-mile section. That number increased to 52,000 last year, according to Virginia Department of Transportation traffic counts.

County officials say that to help traffic on U.S. 250 on Pantops, two major things should be looked into - building another crossing over the river into the city and widening the bypass.

“The city needs to get over it,” said David L. Slutzky, chairman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. “That route needs to be widened.”

The Pantops master plan says housing units nearly tripled since 1996 and roughly 300 acres were developed or redeveloped for commercial use. Like the other documents done for county growth areas, it includes an extensive list of transportation recommendations intended to allay congestion on U.S. 250.

It also acknowledges that regional coordination and funding will be necessary to address traffic on Pantops and on U.S. 250 to the Fluvanna County line.

“That’s Richmond’s job, to fund the necessary infrastructure,” Slutzky said of the state government’s role to provide financing for transportation projects.

Interchange expected to help flow on U.S. 250 Bypass A $32.5 million interchange project in Charlottesville is likely to be the only major road improvement that will be seen on U.S. 250 or the U.S. 250 Bypass anytime soon. The structure, to be located at the U.S. 250 Bypass and McIntire Road, will function as the endpoint of the controversial Meadowcreek Parkway. The 2-mile road begins at East Rio Road in Albemarle and will connect to the interchange in Charlottesville by going through McIntire Park. While City Council members recently voiced concerns about pedestrians and bicyclists having sufficient amenities as a part of the interchange project, they are expected to take a vote on the final design before the end of the year. A timeline projects that the Commonwealth Transportation Board will approve the interchange this winter, and construction would begin in the spring of 2011. City officials say the mostly federally funded road improvement will help to allay bypass traffic, which has been steadily creeping up. “Traffic is growing at a pretty good rate on that road, and it’s going to deteriorate as long as it keeps doing that,” said Jim Tolbert, director of Charlottesville’s Neighborhood Development Services. Charlottesville traffic projections for 2030 - which assume that the city’s portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway will be built - estimate that 25,075 vehicles will travel per day on the bypass between U.S. 29 and Hydraulic Road, that 48,750 will move between McIntire Road and Park Street and that 50,350 vehicles will drive daily between Locust Avenue and High Street. Those figures are an increase from the 23,000, 36,000 and 38,000 vehicles, respectively, seen on those segments on average last year. Tolbert said that not having a typical intersection at the U.S. 250 Bypass and McIntire Road will help congestion there somewhat by not allowing it to get worse. But, he said, “it won’t do anything for the flow at Free Bridge.” The city expects that 56,400 vehicles will move daily across Free Bridge roughly 20 years from now. And officials agree that they do not know how that bottleneck, and others along U.S. 250, will ultimately be relieved. “I don’t know that there is an easy answer to any of this,” Mayor Dave Norris said.

According to a list of projects from UnJAM 2035, the area’s long-range transportation plan, the U.S. 250 corridor improvements that are called for in the master plan alone would cost $42.1 million. Adopted in March 2008, the plan says improvements should provide for a Hansen Mountain Road connector; additional sidewalks and bike paths; more transit; widening U.S. 250 on Pantops (but not to more than six lanes); and another Rivanna River crossing into Charlottesville, among a slew of other ideas.

A 2004 study on the eastern part of U.S. 250 also suggested that park-and-ride lots be built at Interstate 64 and at Route 616.

According to building activity reports, Albemarle County issued building permits for 835 new residential units in the Pantops area between 1999 and this year’s third quarter, which ended in September. The largest number came in 2001, when the county issued permits for 11 single-family homes and 265 multi-family units.

Additionally, according to county development activity reports that were kept from 1999 to 2003, which gauged serious development interests, there was nearly 770,000 square feet in major non-residential site plans for Pantops signed off on by county leaders.

“It’s a bottleneck now, obviously,” Bourguignon said of Free Bridge. “If there were a crossing of the river somewhere behind where State Farm is, going over to downtown Charlottesville, you’d divert so much traffic. But nothing will be done.”

Grant Cosner remembers when there was no U.S. 250 Bypass and when the same stretch that runs through Pantops was only two lanes.

“High Street was also two lanes, of course,” Cosner said on a recent afternoon from his auto body shop.

The Cosner Bros. Body Shop has been at its Charlottesville High Street location, where Free Bridge is in plain view, for 53 years. In that time the business has witnessed a substantial evolution of the corridor, as growth on Pantops has exploded and thousands use U.S. 250 to go to work, to shop and to get home.

“I think it’s all been good. I also think the bypass was a really good thing,” said Cosner, who takes U.S. 250 in his 50-minute roundtrip commute to and from the Shadwell area.

VDOT’s average annual daily traffic counts show that while traffic volumes are high on the U.S. 250 Bypass in Charlottesville between Emmet Street and the city’s eastern line, the vehicular increases vary depending on the segment of road.

In 2000, the 0.42-mile segment of the bypass from Hydraulic Road to Dairy Road saw 39,000 vehicles per day, and the figure increased to 43,000 last year. Generally, excluding the Free Bridge area, counts jumped between 1,000 and 4,000 vehicles from 2000 to 2008.

Jim Tolbert, Charlottesville’s director of Neighborhood Development Services, said congestion on U.S. 250 is certainly an issue because of the bottlenecks residents sit through at particular times of the day.

“Is it a massive issue? No, but 250 is an area where traffic is increasing. We know that, so it’s got to have some attention,” he said.

Charlottesville officials, however, say they have no interest in taking measures such as widening the bypass. Tolbert said he would love to see the city and county come to a mutually acceptable solution, “But I don’t think there’s any interest in a solution that just puts the burden on city streets.”

“We are not going to be the conduit of traffic for the whole region,” said City Council member Satyendra Huja, who sits on the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The refusals are mutual. City officials say they want to see Albemarle pursue an eastern connector, a road whose feasibility was jointly studied by the localities. After studying the road for nearly two years, the recommended alignment to relieve the most congestion was to connect Route 20 with Rio Road by going through Pen Park.

But last year, the county Board of Supervisors decided to hold off on studying the road more until it had more data on traffic patterns.

The City Council eventually followed suit, even though city staff recommended the county study two of the proposed routes in more detail and that the route move forward if located outside city limits.

After getting new data, “maybe we can take another look at it,” said Albemarle Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd, who said he is not opposed to building an eastern connector.

Some city and county leaders have relentlessly advocated for a more robust transit system that is not downtown Charlottesville-centric, yet a lack of state funding and the inability to raise large amounts of local revenues have, for now, essentially tabled that idea, as well.

Steve Williams, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, said achieving agreements between the two localities must begin with a neutral party doing technical work at the staff level that all parties can trust. Once that is in place, the localities must define the issues they face and the benefits they could accrue from various solutions.

Williams said, in his view, the traffic troubles that plague Free Bridge and parts of Pantops are not a capacity problem, but one that could be helped through intersection improvements. On expanding transit, Williams said, “There’s just not enough capacity for transit to be the entire solution.”

Slutzky said that the county has largely addressed what it can about the future of U.S. 250 through its multiple master plans, which all have their own transportation recommendations. But he has suggested doing a master plan for the entire area as a way to help officials reach the consensus needed to solve the area’s traffic problems.

“It would be our product, our common solutions, about what would work best,” he said. But concerns about how much such a plan would cost, and limited local resources to collaborate regionally, made it so the idea never got traction.

“Nobody ever talks about it,” Slutzky said.

Norris said to solve the problem, he thinks it will have to come from those residents who have to constantly deal with the pressures of growth and its effect on U.S. 250. Once they voice their concerns and demand that action be taken, maybe then elected officials would come around.

Pantops resident Bourguignon only sees more talk.

“Let us be frank. How long has it taken to get the Meadowcreek Parkway off the ground?” he asked. “They’ve been talking and talking and talking and planning and planning and planning and fighting and fighting and fighting for what, 35 or 40 years?”

Growth strains highways, residents

 

This article is the first in a four-part series on the future of Route 250 published jointly by The Daily Progress and Charlottesville Tomorrow. Part one is published here by permission of The Daily Progress. Part: One, Two, Three, Four

By Rachana Dixit
The Daily Progress
Sunday, November 29, 2009

Neil and Susan Means’ property is the embodiment of the rural east in Albemarle County.

They live where there are few intersections and no parallel roads. Thick woods surround their home, and few noises pervade the landscape.

But the Meanses have become dismayed with the mounting traffic and bottlenecks around their neighborhood because of surrounding growth. The couple, having lived in the area since the 1970s and in their Village of Rivanna home since 1980, says the county’s strategy of concentrating growth in certain areas makes sense.

“But out here, there is one road going past it,” Neil Means said.

The road Means refers to is U.S. 250.

From Keswick to Crozet, U.S. 250 is one of Central Virginia’s most important routes for commutes and commerce. And from one end to the other, residents share concerns about whether the road’s condition will hold up with more growth and less money, or if a decline in transportation infrastructure could pose a detriment to the area’s scenery and high quality of life.

“There is no infrastructure to support the growth we have now,” Susan Means said.

In eastern Albemarle, the challenge involves both local traffic and those residents who head to work or shopping from points nearby that are not within county limits.

“It’s the Main Street for the east part of Albemarle County, if you will,” said Steve Williams, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. U.S. 250, he said, is the best connection to the area’s major employment centers - downtown Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, Pantops and U.S. 29.

“No wonder the thing is congested,” Williams said.

The difficulty in balancing growth pressures and a decline in transportation infrastructure spending is growing more acute, but there is little movement toward solutions.

“We talked about the need to kind of coordinate these issues,” said Kenneth C. Boyd, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, of figuring out transportation solutions with officials in localities farther east of Albemarle, such as Louisa. But because there is essentially no money to implement solutions, Boyd said that idea “fell by the wayside.”

“It’s an interregional problem that really is difficult to solve,” he said.

Climbing traffic

Virginia Department of Transportation traffic counts for last year estimated that 24,000 vehicles traveled on U.S. 250 between Interstate 64 and Route 22 daily, and the number is expected to increase to 42,185 vehicles by 2035.

Between Route 22 and the Fluvanna County line, daily traffic counts from last year were 5,600 vehicles and are projected to jump to 24,400 by 2035.

“Rush hour is the problem,” Neil Means said. “It can be really horrible.”

The byway in the eastern part of Albemarle has been studied in an attempt to divine how congestion could be reduced. One study was done in 2004, and in March of last year, the Eastern Albemarle Sub-Area Study - coordinated with VDOT, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and Albemarle County - was released and listed millions of dollars worth of recommendations.

Among them were improving the intersection of U.S. 250 and North Milton Road and constructing a roundabout or traffic signal at the intersection of U.S. 250 and Glenmore Way. The latter junction edges on the Village of Rivanna - a designated growth area east of where I-64 crosses U.S. 250 east of Charlottesville.

The village has increasingly attracted attention as its master plan is finalized and the growth-versus-infrastructure argument comes to a head.

It was decided last month that the master plan would state that unless several transportation improvements are made, many specifically to U.S. 250, the Albemarle Planning Commission would not recommend the approval of rezonings in the Rivanna growth area.

The commission solidified its opinion Nov. 17, recommending to supervisors that the Village of Rivanna master plan be approved, but authorization for developments that require rezonings would be contingent upon the completion of infrastructure upgrades.

$16 million needed

Albemarle has issued building permits in the village for hundreds of new residential units over the last 10 years, according to building activity reports. Between 1999 and the third quarter of this year, which ended in September, building permits were granted for 324 new units. The most were issued in 2003 - 53 total, 52 of which were for single-family homes.

The draft master plan points out that based on March estimates, there were 761 dwellings in the Village of Rivanna, with an estimated population of 1,617 to 1,918 residents.

The improvements that would be required to handle more vehicles in the corridor are estimated to cost more than $16 million. They include widening U.S. 250 to four lanes from I-64 to Glenmore Way; improving the intersections of U.S. 250 and North Milton Road and U.S. 250 and Black Cat Road; and improving the I-64 interchange at Shadwell.

“Beyond that, there’s really not that much more to say in terms of particular improvements to 250 that may be out there in the long term,” Wayne Cilimberg, Albemarle County’s director of planning, said of the village’s master plan.

“There’s never been any action taken on the east part of 250 by the county,” he said.

VDOT officials also say that two more traffic signals, primarily being funded by private developers, are planned along U.S. 250 near the village because of new projects - at Glenmore Way and at Route 22 in Shadwell.

Growing pains

The Meanses said they do not think the Village of Rivanna is suited to be a growth area because of where it is located in Albemarle, and because a sharp decline in transportation spending translates into U.S. 250 not being able to get the necessary improvements to handle an influx of growth.

But others say that growth will continue to happen, and if it is not concentrated in the areas that are designed for higher densities and more residents, then it would instead invade more rural areas.

“I’m having a really hard time with the thought of, OK, we’re just going to shut down our growth areas,” Planning Commission member Marcia Joseph said in an interview. Joseph said moving residents to rural areas, where it would not be realistic for them to use other transportation modes apart from their own vehicles, would ultimately not solve any traffic problems.

“What if we decide that our growth areas are no longer our growth areas?” she added. “Is that what we’re deciding? I don’t think so.”

Williams said the traffic increases that are expected on U.S. 250 are going to happen regardless of whether the village’s rezonings are approved - because of new development and employment opportunities further east, such as in Fluvanna County and Zion Crossroads in Louisa. Current sewer capacity would allow for another 300 to 400 units on top of 674 approved new units since 2001.

“We’ll deal with the specifics and the details as it moves forward,” Boyd said.

The Meanses, echoing the feelings of most county planning commissioners, say they are glad officials have acknowledged the growth and infrastructure conundrum. Even widening the roads and doing the other improvements, Neil Means said, is not going to solve U.S. 250’s traffic issues.

“Provide the roads if you’re going to have a growth area,” he said.

Transit authority future depends on new appointments

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The fate of a proposed Regional Transit Authority (RTA) could depend on who is selected in January to represent the City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on two regional transportation bodies. Since a joint meeting in February 2008, local officials have been pursuing the creation of a new authority to operate and expand local bus service.

Supervisor David Slutzky, a chief proponent of the RTA, was defeated in his bid for re-election to Albemarle’s Rio District seat earlier this month. Slutzky sits on both the MPO policy board and a committee created to guide the transition from a Charlottesville-owned bus system to one operated by an independent RTA. The RTA working group last met in May of this year.

Routes 5 and 7 serve Albemarle County and run twice an hour from 6:00 AM to midnight, Monday through Saturday. Route 7 is one of only two routes that run at all on Sunday.

Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed a bill authorizing Charlottesville and Albemarle to create a transit authority, but a companion bill that may have provided a funding source for enhanced service did not make it out of committee. That legislation would have authorized a referendum in which city and country residents would have voted on a sales tax increase to pay the RTA’s operating and capital costs. Among the questions to be answered is how much it will cost to implement the new authority and how assets of the Charlottesville Transit Service would be transferred to the RTA. Earlier this year, the MPO had considered spending $40,000 to re-hire VHB, the firm who originally developed the RTA plan, to provide an estimate as well as to answer other logistical and governance questions.

The MPO Board agreed at their meeting on Monday that city, county and MPO staff should instead conduct that work.

“At this point I think we ought to get these questions answered, and find out where we are,” said Supervisor Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett). The MPO also agreed to reconvene the RTA working group in the new year.

However, City Councilor Satyendra Huja said further decisions should wait until the next City Council and Board of Supervisors appoint replacements for Councilor Julian Taliaferro and Slutzky on the MPO. Huja, who serves on the RTA working group with Councilor Holly Edwards, said he would like to remain on the MPO but would give up the seat if another Councilor was more interested.

A decision on who will replace Taliaferro will not be made until the new Council meets in January. Edwards said in an interview that she is interested in joining the MPO. She added she is a supporter of the RTA concept but has reservations.

 “The RTA is like having a new toy for Christmas but without any of the batteries,” Edwards said.

Councilor-elect Kristin Szakos is also interested in serving on the MPO. In an interview before the election, Szakos said she feels the city and county should work together but was not yet convinced they needed to combine forces into an RTA.

“I think we do need to work closely together, because we have a lot of shared needs and a lot of shared resources that we can use,” Szakos said in September.

The Board of Supervisors will not appoint its new representatives to the MPO until January. Rooker is interested in serving another term, but his continued tenure is a matter for the full Board to decide.

Supervisor-elect Rodney Thomas (Rio) said before the election that he wants to study if the RTA can be funded using the revenue sharing money the county pays to the city. Supervisor-elect Duane Snow (Samuel Miller) said his support for an RTA depends on whether there are other resources for funding transit

“I would exhaust all the efforts to get the Commonwealth to pay attention to its infrastructure and their responsibilities,” Snow said.

Council wants more pedestrian and bike access at Meadowcreek Parkway interchange

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

City Council has directed its staff to work with the firm designing the Meadowcreek Parkway Interchange to add a second sidewalk to the project. That feature was removed as part of an effort to lower the cost and scope of the interchange, as were other design elements to separate pedestrians and cyclists from traffic on McIntire Road and the Parkway.

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A rendering of the design shown to Council shows how the interchange would look looking south towards downtown Charlottesville.(Source: RK&K)

In June 2008, Council selected a grade separated diamond interchange as its preference for a final design. A steering committee made up of citizens and elected officials had recommended an oval roundabout after spending two and a half years debating the finer points of how the interchange should serve not only cars but pedestrians and cyclists.

Part of the reasoning behind Council’s decision was an effort to reduce the scope of the project to reduce costs and to limit the impact to McIntire Park and other cultural resources.

“It’s been a challenge to fit this interchange within the four quadrants with all of them having important community resources,” said City transportation planner Jeanette Janiczek. “We’ve been directed by City Council and the public to limit the impacts on the environment, the neighborhoods, historic resources as well as the park.”

Council made several design decisions at that meeting in June 2008. The drawing for their selected alternative original showed an interchange that had a much larger scope according to Janiczek. She told them the bridge would have been 223 feet long and 30 feet high, and the interchange would have taken up about 8.5 acres of McIntire Park.

A decision was made to move the trail to the western side of McIntire Road in order to reduce the number of stream crossings, and to shorten and lower the bridge’s span. Under this alternative, only 7 acres of McIntire Park would be affected. However, as a result, the pedestrian trail was placed at-grade with the on-ramps that will lead to the 250 Bypass.

Nearly 150 people commented as part of the design public hearing in held in October, according to Janiczek.

“The size of the interchange was not questioned, but the public did comment that the pedestrian and bicycle facilities were not sufficiently accommodated,” Janiczek said.

Under the new design shown to Council on Monday night, the trail would continue the Schenck’s Branch greenway north, where it would cross through the two traffic signals and underneath the 250 bridge

A birds-eye rendering of the interchange design shown to Council (Source: RK&K)

Councilor David Brown wanted to know what happened with a pedestrian bridge across the parkway that had been depicted early on in the design process. Janiczek said when the decision was made to use traffic signals as opposed to a roundabout, it was thought pedestrians could safely cross through the interchange using signalized crosswalks. She added the bridge would have required many switchback trails that in order to meet the Americans with Disability Act requirements. That was deemed to be too expensive.

Mayor Dave Norris said he was disappointed that the trail shown with the interchange plans does not continue north past the Vietnam Memorial. Janiczek said a north-bound trail could not co-exist with the Meadowcreek golf course, the fate of which has not yet been determined.

“Trails normally aren’t conducive to golf course uses, yet [the eastern half of McIntire Park] hasn’t been master planned and we don’t want this roadway project to drive how the rest of the park is planned and designed,” Janiczek. That master plan, which will determine the future of the golf course, will be developed next spring.

Councilor Satyendra Huja asked if an eastern trail could be added as well. Janiczek said she would work with design firm RK&K to make the requested changes.

Norris said he would be voting against the interchange, but that he wanted the design to be the best possible.

“If we’re going to build it, we need to do it the right way,” Norris said.

Janiczek said she would be prepared to return before Council with an amended design at their next meeting on December 7, 2009.

Crozet streetscape grant prompts questions about County’s capital projects budget

By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Friday, November 6, 2009

The streetscape improvements are called for in the Crozet Master Plan

In the face of significant revenue shortfalls, Albemarle County Supervisor Ken Boyd (Rivanna) said Wednesday that at least some projects in the County’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) should be scrutinized to see if public investment is still warranted. Earlier this year, the County removed $100 million  from the program through FY2014 in order to balance the five-year financial plan. This week, supervisors were told to expect another $100 million in project cuts and to prepare for a heavily revised capital budget focusing only on maintenance and debt service.

The topic came up during a public hearing on an application for a $250,000 grant from the federal government to help pay for streetscape improvements in downtown Crozet. The County has previously received $300,000 in transportation enhancement money (TEA-21) for previous phases of the project. The money will pay for sidewalks, drainage improvements, decorative lights and benches.

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The total cost of the project is around $2.5 million, according to Albemarle County’s Chief Planner, David Benish. If awarded the grant, the County will pay for around 80 percent of the project with taxpayer dollars. Benish said the Crozet streetscape is one of the higher priority recommendations called for in the Crozet Master Plan.

Boyd expressed concern at the amount of money that the County has invested in the project. He said he was not sure if this was appropriate spending given the County’s ongoing budget issues.

“We have two master plans, and we seem to forget about the other one at Pantops that has absolutely no funding for it,” said Boyd. “At the same time, we’re throwing millions of dollars into Crozet.”  Meanwhile, he pointed out that improvements called for in the Pantops Master Plan have not yet been funded.

Benish said many of the Pantops improvements are anticipated to be paid for with proffers from developers such as intersection improvements and at least $1 million in sidewalk improvements. Supervisor David Slutzky (Rio) pointed out that the Crozet Master Plan was adopted five years ago, whereas the Pantops Master Plan was only adopted in March 2008.

“Wait until we get to Places29 and the tab for infrastructure we’re going to have there,” Slutzky said.
Boyd said he wondered how many previous decisions on capital spending will need to be reconsidered as the County’s budget climate continues to worsen .

Supervisor Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett) said once the County begins to apply for grants for projects, it cannot break that kind of commitment.

County Attorney Larry Davis said if the project is not finished, the County would have to return the other $300,000 received through the federal program.

The Board voted 6-0 to support the grant application. Boyd said he could support this application, but that he wanted to apply more scrutiny during the development of the FY2011 CIP.

“I’m going to ask as part of the CIP oversight committee review that we look at these multi-millions worth of monies that are sitting around for previously approved projects and whether or not we can continue to do those,” Boyd said. However, he acknowledged that projects that are tied to grant funds will likely have to go forward.