Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Salvaging U.S. 29 North

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Albemarle County is one of the most beautiful counties in Virginia, and Charlottesville is one of its coolest small cities. But the strip development on U.S. 29 North is one of the most god-awful products of the contemporary “planning” process you can find anywhere in Virginia. It’s as if Charlottesville/Albemarle took anything that could be remotely ugly or dysfunctional and smooshed it into an eleven-mile strip of state highway north of town Unfortunately, if you live in the region or travel through it, there is no escaping this horror.

Citizens seem serious about doing something, although there doesn’t seem to be a consensus about what to do. The Daily Progress has published a lengthy article describing the Places29 initiative and the controversy it is generating.

Places29, the product of local planners, provides what sounds like an attractive vision for the corridor (although the devil is in the details):

Electric lines vanish. New roads appear, giving drivers a way to avoid 29. Some commuters simply avoid the hassle by riding the bus. Walking is encouraged, because residents work, shop and play in coordinated communities.

And all it will cost is some $400 million.

The usual NIMBYs object to anything that might impact their neighborhoods, oblivious that by-right development will impact their neighborhoods anyway. And there’s always some joker — in this case John J. “Butch” Davies III, the local representative to the Commonwealth Transportation Board — who wants “Richmond” to pay to clean up the mess.

There are no magic wands for a place like U.S. 29 North. Fixing that monstrosity is going to cost money, and it’s going to take doing things differently than in the past. The longer the region delays in implementing a new vision, the more dysfunctional development that will take place. It’s critical to minimize future costs by getting landowners and developers to buy into a new vision as soon as possible. Then, through the use of Community Development Authorities, municipal bonds and some 30 or 40 years of re-development, the corridor might have a fighting chance. If key players are unwilling to adopt a long-term time horizon, any spasmodic effort at cleaning the place up is bound to be cosmetic and a waste of time.

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20 responses to “Salvaging U.S. 29 North”

  1. Gold_h2o Avatar
    Gold_h2o

    I was on the road one day last week. I drove from Warrenton all the way to C-ville. The trip from Warrenton to the 33/29 intersection in Ruckersville is great – The way the scenery changes once you get to the 33/29 intersection is shocking.

    Future urban planners take note – if you want to see HOW NOT to develop a corridor look no further than rt. 29 from Ruckersville into C-ville…..Thomas Jefferson would roll in his grave if he knew what had occurred.

  2. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Actually, US Route 29 from Cherrydale in Arlington County all the way to C’ville is a dictionary of error in settlement pattern evolution. There is hardly a mistake that has been made for which there is not a great example in that strech.

    From Buckland in Fauquier Coutny to the Rivanna River in Albemarle County there are glimpses of what once existed but the seeds of distruction are already rank saplings or worse for most of the way.

    Most who understand settlement patterns and have to travel back and forth on a regular basis have a favorite alternative to US Route 29 for most of the way.

    Southbound, some favor, 211 to 229 to 15 to 20.

    I try to arrange my schedule to drive it after dark.

    Creating a series of functional Neighborhoods making up two or three Balanced Villages along 29 between the County line and the University is a great idea but what about the dysfuctional distribution of urban land uses in Greene, Madison, Culpeper and Fauquier Counties to say nothing of Prince William?

    EMR

  3. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I wonder even if C’ville were the perfect balanced community how the issue of having connecting roads of statewide significance would be handled.

    The idea behind the state’s primary roads (roads numbered lower than 600) was similiar to and predated the interstates roads.

    In both cases – the idea was to provide statewide/nationwide mobility for the automobile.

    But in both cases – there was a failure to understand the ineraction of land-use consequences.

    In the case of primary roads, strip commerical shopping – which is R-29’s problem and not at all unique in Virginia as across the state countless “expensive” bypasses have been built once the original route was essentially optimized for commerical activity and ruined for efficient through travel.

    In some cases, even the bypasses got ruined and new “outer” bypasses had to be built.

    The interstates thought they had that problem licked when they were mandated to be “limited-access” and also restrictions on the how,what,where,when of interchanges and ramps.

    so I would like to hear how the issue of connecting balanced communities should be handled.

    I’m presuming that no matter how “balanced” a community might be that WalMart still needs to have tractor-trailer deliveries of goods and local residents still need to leave their Alpha community to visit Grandma – 300 miles distant.

  4. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    As you frequently do, you put your finger on an important issue.

    One, but not the only, reason we moved to Greater Warrenton-Faquier in 2002 was to explore that very question.

    After planning what we now call Balanced Communities and then building and managing Cluster, Neighborhood and Village scale compnents of Balanced Communities for 35 years we had a very good idea of what needed to evolve inside the Clear Edge.

    But what about outside; especially along the roadways that traverse the Countryside as you point out.

    We had worked for conservation organizations for nearly forty years, including the Temporary Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks and we had laid down a lot of ideas including the “HANDBOOK” which we are revising to be part of one of the three books in “TRILO-G” but there was muvh more to learn.

    By the time we put on the “Shaping the Future” certificate program in 2003 it was starting to come together.

    We have now moved past what the settlement pattern should look like to how to achieve that pattern without destroying the social fabric and the positive aspects of distributed living.

    Just last Wednesday we were in the field with a good friend who is an organic farmer. (Of course he is more than an organic farmer he is studied at Brown and Yale, has a PhD in a core natural science, was a senior official at the Smithsonian et. al., but for the past 20 years he and his wife have been Fahmahs.)

    They are advocates and exemplars of many of Wendel Berry’s ideas as are others who have contributed to our thinking.

    There will be a chapter in BRIDGES, one of the three parts of TRILO-G, on what we have come to understand with their help. It is still evolving but there are answers.

    By the way, if anyone wants a clear, crisp, insightful, emotional and thoughtful view of how “rural” ended in the Adirondacks read Bill McKibben’s “Wandering Home.”

    McKibben is the author of “The End of Nature” and another book which we cited in our discussion of Wilderness in “The Shape of the Future.” What can be gleaned from his 2005 book could be called “how the last vestages of “rural” disappeared from one of the largest forested areas of the lower 48.”

    Larry, we are working as hard as we can to get this stuff down but it will be a while.

    EMR

  5. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    (Of course he is more than an organic farmer he is studied at Brown and Yale, has a PhD in a core natural science, was a senior official at the Smithsonian et. al., but for the past 20 years he and his wife have been Fahmahs.)

    I think this is an important point. I imagine that with those credentials your friend was able to put himself in a financial position where he could afford both the farm and to be a farmer.

    Assume he bought his place while he was still working, with a view to the future. Does that make him a vile long-distance commuter or a farmer-in-waiting? Is he an uban user of the countryside, or are those sins forgiven the moment he takes up residence and becomes organic? What about the speculator who sold him the land? Does the 20 years of being a farmer make up for what may have been 30 years of prior consumptive excess?

    It would appear that your friend has found a way to make his version of the last vestiges of rural “profitable”, at least in his own sense.

    This weeks time magazine has an article about the bison industry. “The ranchers care for eht bison because they can make money selling their meet. And so bison are fluorishing again because they have the evolutionary advantage of tasting good and having survived to a time when we all need to eat leaner. …the individual bison we eat lose, but the nature of their paradox is that most would never have a chance at all if we didn’t provide a reason for their husbandry”.

    This is essentially the argument I make about land conservation. The individual parcels we sacrifice lose, but they also provide the reason to husband the remainder. That will only happen if we find a way to make it profitable, or if enough people like your friend have, or are able to obtain (and keep) enough resources to do it for pleasure.

    This is why I choose not to disdain those that are sometimes pooh-poohed as hobby farmers. I see as little reason for that distinction as I see for the distinction organic farmer.

    Now, if a farmer is really profitable, THAT is a distinction.

    Like the bison, it is the scarciity of plots such as your friend has that makes them valuable, especially if they are adacent to some other spaces where he can still use his other skills.

    In another article in Time, on affordable solar panels, the magazine states, “For a long time, when people thought aboutthe environment they thought mostly about things they wanted to conserve: forests, species, oceans. But now we know that environmentalism is also about the things we produce: houses offices, factories.” It goes on to describe various efforts to make solar panels profitable.

    $400 million may very well turn out to be a lowball price for rebuilding a section of route 29, and I suggest that it is. Whatever the price, it will be a lot cheaper than trying to unbuild it and return it to a “rural” state.

    Unless we figure out how to make a “rural” condition more profitable. It seems to me that your organic friend has figured out how to do that, on his own terms. As a society we need to figure out how to “husband” people like him, just as we have figured out how to “husband” the bison. (Except we won’t eat them, of course.)

    As a method of saving the vestiges of rural areas, I see it as no different form creating an environment for the creative class in order to save the vestiges of our cities.

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I keep thinking….

    what bothers me is the idea that if we have inequities due to existing subsidies – that the advocacy seems in response to inequities – we need to expand the subsidies.

    I think we need to be going in the opposite direction.

    We need to remove subsidies and we need for folks who make choices to bear the financial consequences for those choices and not expect the government or other taxpayers to “help them out” because they claim to be doing a “good thing”.

    If someone wants a hobby farm – then fine. If they want a few acres to farm organically then great. If they want a big home 50 miles from work – go for it.

    But nobody “owes” them part of their own income – no matter whether – some view hobby farms or organic farms as “good things”.

    There has to be a tangible public good for something to deserve a subsidy.

    Here’s an example of how I think, we get off track….

    Say – a rural area cannot attract and keep a doctor – and it has the result that those citizens actually suffer health impacts as a result of the lack of a doctor.

    THEN – a subsidy to encourage a doctor to locate there MIGHT be .. ONE APPROACH….(there are others) and part of the justification is that taxpayer costs might be even higher without a subsidy because of a greater use of emergency rooms.

    So – there is a nexus between the subsidy and a legitimate (not perceived) “public good”.

    I feel that we go wrong when we use the fact that a subsidy was given – as justification to give subsidies to ALL DOCTORS with the premise that because we gave it to one – that it would be an inequity not to give it to all of them – and we just ignore the reason why we gave the first doctor a subsidy.

    I’d agree that some subsidies are not warranted but I don’t think the solution is to .. expand them.

    tsk tsk….

  7. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Keep pushing your thinking in this area.

    What you will find is that, due to a failure to understand the consequences of their actions, citizens are doing a lot of the “subsidizing.”

    Wal*Mart is a good example. Due to what we call a genetic proclivity, citizens want to collect things and they want to collect things as cheaply as possible.

    They drive miles and spend time getting to a Wal*Mart to save pennies on something they could get, better, cheaper, closer.

    (Wal*Mart knows this and so they only price some thing cheaper but that is another story.)

    The problem is that citizens will not force either the market or the governance structue to fairly allocate the costs of disaggregation.

    A good place to start on this issue is Tony Downs who discusses the failure of citizens in a democracy to fairly allocate costs to remove collective windfalls because each individual hopes they will get more than their fair share of them.

    Unfortunately, in the area of mobility and access Tony gave up years ago and is famously suggests just getting a nice car with a good sound system.

    EMR

    Unfortunatly

  8. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Today, I am starting the Larry Gross for President “grass roots” campaign. Or, at least for governor. With the following words he said it all:

    “But nobody “owes” them part of their own income – no matter whether – some view hobby farms or organic farms as “good things”.

    There has to be a tangible public good for something to deserve a subsidy.”.

    No subsidies unless there is a tangible public good! The same thought I express with the words “Stop the Robbery”.

    Where is Albermerle / Charlottesville in the deficit / subsidy situation?

    I’ll bet that they are paying considerably more in state taxes than the state is giving them back – after minimal but legitimate state holdbacks for things like the state police and necessary cross-regional connector roads.

    I’ll bet they are part of the urban and urbanizing jurisdictions paying tribute to the rural areas.

    Meanwhile, the state is squandering one of its most potentially valuable economic assets.

    Look at Austin in Texas.

    Look at Charlotte in NC (or Raleigh).

    Look at Jacksonville in Florida.

    Bend in Oregon.

    Albemarle is a beautiful place – one of the most beautiful in the world (and I’ve been all over). Charlottesville (aka The Hook) is a cool city. UVA could draw considerable high technology growth to the region.

    Steps for the future:

    1. No more taxing the good people of Albermarle / Charlottesville more than their fair share – for education, courts, jails, ports (their fair share is 0%) or roads. Albermarle is a “designated state investment area” and that county spends all it raises inside the county.

    2. If more money is needed for Albermarle, then the state will subsidize Albermarle for a period of time sufficient for that jurisdiction to implement its development plan. After that, it is expected that Albermarle will generate more taxes than it needs alloing the subsidization of other potential high potential areas in the state.

    This is how people who made it through Kenneth Elzinga’s (sp? – it’s been a while) Introduction to Economics class would see things.

    Sunsidies are investments not jurisdictional welfare.

    All costs and all revenues count – not just roads.

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “We need to remove subsidies and we need for folks who make choices to bear the financial consequences for those choices and not expect the government or other taxpayers to “help them out” because they claim to be doing a “good thing”.

    Fine. But the problem with that argument is that we have no agreed upon way to determine what the financial consequences are.

    Frequently, we have people making choices who do not bear the financial consequences, and they feel they have the right to do so with impunity because they feel they are doing the “right thing”. And, because they are government employees, they are making those choices on behalf of, or imposed on, other people.

    In order to remove subsidies you need to also remove restrictions, otherwise the choices are not available, and, in that case, we cannot tell what the financial consequences are. I think your argument is half of a scissor: by itself it doesn’t work, but when you provide the other half, then you find it cuts both ways.

    All I am suggesting is that when we want something, whether it is to salvage routes 29, fresh bison, renewable energy, or an abundance of organic farms, then we need to be prepared to see that it/they are supported.

    That might mean subsidies, or not. There are plenty of hobby farmers who think they are doing the right thing, and don’t mind “losing” money in the process. In losing money, they are in effect self subsidizing. They are taking money they earned and saved (probably in the city) and transferring it back to support some vestige of the countryside.

    Now consder the “10x rule”. Is that a fair allocation of costs or is it a punitive barrier to entry? Does it apply as a gradient, depending on density, or is it binary: 1X in the “good” places and 10x in the “bad” places. Does it apply to everyone, or only those that are using 50 miles of road every day? What about those that use 50 miles of road once a week?

    Loudoun county has a different lifestyle than Fauquier. It has more development, higher income, higher net worth, and higher taxes. For the averge Joe, it is a significant difference. So tell me, who is it that is really paying the financial consequences of “their” decisions?

    Maybe EMR’s organic farmer friend is making a nice profit from his labors. I sure hope so. But if he isn’t, then he is the one paying the financial consequences of his decision. According to the rules under which it was made. But if we “fundamentally change” the rules and increase his costs artificially, who pays the financial consequences of that? If we fundamentally change the rules and alter his exit strategy, who pays the financial consequences of that?

    Like scissors have two blades we have positive subsidies and negative subsidies. I find your argument unpersuasive because you seem to willing to accept one and deny the other.

    To me it seems an open question of whether we are willing to take the financial consequences of paying for what we want, or whether we mistakenly think it is easier and cheaper to force others to pay (sometimes excessively) when they want something we don’t.

  10. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Salvaging Rt 29 and renewable energy both have the promise to substantially improve the economic health of Virginia. Fresh bison and organic farming do not.

    The state needs to decide where it has the need to operate and where it should let free enterprise operate. Issues like emminent domain and guaranteeing Dominion Energy a minimum return based on rate payers makes Rt 29 and renewable energy legitimate interests of the government. Raising fresh bison and organic vegetables involve selling a product in the hyper competitive food industry. If people want the product enough they will pay the price for the product. If not, they won’t. The state should butt out of these matters and let the free market decide.

  11. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Fresh bison and organic farming do not.

    That is your opinion, yet there are people who raise bison or bison cross animals and they have made their choice, as have organic and hobby farmers. They are paying the financial consequences for what they want.

    Who said anything about subsidizing them? Support yes, subsidies, no. By support, what I mean is the other half of Larry’s Scissor. We’ve heard disdainful talk against hobby farmers here. I’m only suggesting that despite the downside, they may be doing us a favor. So, let the free market work and let’s not tax them into subsidizing us.

    I neither think they should be subsidized, nor do I think they should be denigrated, or taxed out of existence to support urban areas. Rural land is taxed at a lower rate than developed land, but since that land gets and uses almost no services, those that use it are subsidizing the more developed areas of the county.

    “We need to save that open space because it keeps our taxes low.” is a frequent refrain, repeated again last week by Hope Porter in the Fauquier Democrat.

    What this really says is tax the rural areas to subsidize the developed areas.

    Add to that the (mistaken) idea that these places somehow cost us more in services, and add to that the idea that those that live “way out there” cause the congestion that happens forty miles away, and you wind up with a scenario that will break the back of the hobby farmers, organic farmers, vineyards, floriculturists, bison growers, herb farmers, christmas tree growers, nurseries and anybody else who is marginally able to keep that land off the market through some agricultural niche.

    Then we sit back and wonder how places like Rte 29 happen. So, we are going to spend $400 million and thirty years to undo that problem. Wouldn’t it be at least possible that if we had provided a little support, some of that problem would never have happened?

    The interest on 400 million is 24 million a year. Thats enough to provide a $3000 a year subsidy to 8000 farms or roughly 1,600,000 acres of protection. $3000 a year is enough to cover average annual loss for farms across the region. It is just about equal to the interest on the amount of money that knowledgeable people like Hope Porter claim those open spaces are saving us.

    When the state needs to decide where it has the need to operate and where it should let free enterprise operate, then maybe it should look at those figures, look at Rte 29 and then decide.

    Isn’t the argument that developers (not to mention planners) who brought us Rte. 29 have already reaped huge undeserved profits based on subsidies to sprawl? And now we want to give them a $400 million bail out?

    Now, if you really want to let the free market decide, I think it is pretty clear the market prefers housing (or Rte 29) to organic lettuce. But that is the half of the scissor no one wants to talk about. Like you say, if people want the product enough, they will pay the price for it. So when people want housing, it should not be subsidized on the back of some organic farmer, who as you point out, is already selling in a hyper competitivie industry.

    So, subsidies, no. Unreasonable penalties, no. Unfair taxation that subsidises others, no.

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    first.. I’m still mulling over Groveton’s compliment… 🙂

    “….we have no agreed upon way to determine what the financial consequences are.”

    oh.. but we don’t need to do that – all we need to do is say – THOSE CONSEQUENCES, no matter what they are – BELONG TO YOU – not others.

    THEN the ball is in YOUR court to decide if you want to pay that cost or not but the option of having others pay that cost is gone.

  13. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I get confused here.

    At first I thought we were talking about the concept of “rewarding” folks (by treating their taxation differently) for raising bison or organic lettuce.

    Then I thought, maybe.. the bison and the lettuce are only “examples” of some marginally productive side benefits of people NOT developing their land so that it no longer would be a “scenic” asset to others – and a “free” scenic asset at that.

    Then I wondered… how that logic applies to urbanizing areas where land conversion is considered “healthy” and “productive” even if a few trees on mowed down in the process.

    I think what Ray needs is a way to MOVE his land …from Facquier to Fairfax – then a lot of these discussions might go in a different direction – althogether.

    🙂

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    since this thread is about C’ville and Rt 29….

    Even though C’ville has I-64 and a Rt 29, it has no beltway to let folks the Rt 29 mess.

    For decades VDOT has wanted a beltway around C’ville – basically to provide travellers with an alternative to having the “pleasure” of fighting their way north of C’ville to a “free-flowing” Rt 29 (sic).

    So – a question:

    From a land-use, human settlement viewpoint – what WOULD a beltway do or not do to C’ville?

    Would it essentially transform C’ville into a clone of Fairfax.

    Would C’ville then spawn it’s own equivalent of out-jurisdicitional “sprawl” and long-distance commuters?

  15. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “THOSE CONSEQUENCES, no matter what they are – BELONG TO YOU – not others.”

    Isn’t what you are saying that we don’t care if the financial consequences are agreed upon? That we are going to tell you what we think the consequences are, and you are stuck with them?

    What if we are wrong? What if we were right once, but conditions changed, and now we are actually shooting ourselves in the foot?

    You act as if I wish to urbanize my land. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m perfectly happy doing what I do, but I can only do it as long as I can afford to. That depends on things that are outside of my control.

    We all make decisions about where we live, where we work and how to get from one to the other. In the end we stay where we are because, for us, the balance “pays”. We move when we think that the costs of moving will be outbalanced by the benefits, over some reasonable period of time.

    It wan’t so long ago that Fairfax bought the last working farm in the county. They first rezoned it for housing, essentially forcing the farmer out of business. Then they bought the land, at housing prices, and turned it into a park.

    They could have bought the land at agricultural prices, but it would have been a screw job for the farmer. In any case, the land was more valuable as public open land than it was as private open land, and as public open land it effectively becomes part of the “housing”.

    Was this a waste of public money, or did the county do the right thing?

    “the bison and the lettuce are only “examples” of some marginally productive side benefits of people NOT developing their land so that it no longer would be a “scenic” asset to others – and a “free” scenic asset at that.”

    This is exactly the point I have been trying to make: If you want to have the “free” scenic and environmental assets that come from open land, then you need to make sure that those marginally productive side benefits are at least marginal.

    That can mean many things. When you go to the store and see bison meat or local produce, buy some. When you see a sign by the road that says eggs, stop and buy some. If they turn out to be duck eggs or goose eggs, try something new. Don’t plan on taxing that pumpkin patch as if it was a house full of kids.

    Don’t beat up on the guy because he doesn’t “really” make his living at it. Go meet the guy who has been growing your christmas tree for the last twelve years.

    If he eventually fails, if his enterprise becomes too marginal, then let him go out of business gracefully, like any other business that sells its assets. And remember all those years he provided free stuff when you slap him with big “development” fees.

    Then you wonder “how that logic applies to urbanizing areas where land conversion is considered “healthy” and “productive” even if a few trees on mowed down in the process.”

    Just this week I bought a new (used) tractor from a farmer who is also a construction contractor. He said he no longer even tries to do work in Fauquier county, he used to build 6 to 10 homes a year here.

    The price of that tractor would have made a healthy down payment on a home. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the home would return more than the tractor will, but I don’t get to make that “choice”.

    Then, this week there is a big brouhaha in the paper about land use and conservation easements and PDR. Seems like some people would rather see that money spent on the schools. Land in land use is “costing” the county $14 million a year, compared to what it would earn if taxed at fair market value. They think that is too much money to spend for all the “free” benefits you mention. They think they are “subsidizing” rich landowners who are not paying tax on the “full value” of their land.

    Never mind that those people ARE paying full taxes on their fabulous homes, as well as fancy horse barns, dairy barns, wineries, hay sheds etc. Never mind that they are paying some additional taxes on the land they get no services for. Never mind that, every home that isn’t built is “saving” the county $2700 a year.

    So tell me, what is the fair market value of agricultural land, if it is restricted to agriculture? If you could make $400 an acre, then I’d suggest its agricultural value might be $4000 an acre.

    Then there is the issue of conservation land. These people entered into a perpetual agreement with the understanding (but no perpetula promise) that they would get land use taxation. If that goes away, when do you suppose the next time you will see another conservation easement will be?

    What is going to happen to all those marginal operators when they are charged full market value for their property? Wouldn’t you say that they are entitled to get full market value when they have to sell out. Or do you think they should only be allowed to sell to people who are willing and able to pay $20,000 an acre for the privilege of earning $400?

    How many of the consequences we cause are we willing to stand up and accept?

  16. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Having had something to do with Cville not having a “Bypass” I will try to provide some insight later, right now I need to get on the road.

    EMR

  17. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “Isn’t what you are saying that we don’t care if the financial consequences are agreed upon? That we are going to tell you what we think the consequences are, and you are stuck with them?”

    Why should there be any discussion between you and others about what their share of the financial consequences are – of something you want to do – that benefits you?

    I don’t understand why others should be involved in discussing what their share is unless it’s a quid pro quo where both benefit from the transaction.

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: Cville Bypass

    The crux of the issue is what to do about roads of statewide significance when they pass THROUGH a jurisdiction.

    Does Cville (or any locality) have the right to use a Primary road for commercial development, if, in the process, it’s functionality to the travelling public to go from point a to point b is adversely affected?

    This is the fundamental tension between the Cville MPO and local leaders and VDOT.

    VDOT perceives it’s mission to maintain reasonable throughput north/south on Rt 29 while Cville will seek to preserve it’s own interests.

    This is the reason why many, if not most, bypasses and beltways were created but they brought with them .. mega unintended consequences… that Cville is well aware of and adamamently opposed to.

  19. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Good point on the use of a “primary” (regional / interregional) roadway for community serving uses.

    In the Greater Charlottesville / Albemarle case, most of the problem is with (and in) Albemarle County.

    Some former “green” supervisors thought the answer was “superior design and landscaping” for the US Route 29 Corridor and of course there was the tax base issue.

    The MacKaye inspired strategy behind the Interregional Highway System (see 1924 reprot) said no to your question.

    When this approach was abandoned for the disaggregation inducing Interstate System, the door was opened to both residential scatteration and strip commercial development.

    Add to this the conflict for tax base between the urban municipalities and the surrounding counties and you have the formula for settlement pattern disaster.

    Finally when both the municipalities and the counties programed (“planned” is the wrong word) far more land for urban land use than is needed, the stage is set for urban enclaves outside the Clear Edge around the Core of New Urban Regions to have degraded access and mobility and to choke off interregional travel.

    In essence the citizens of Greater Charlottesville / Albemarle have no choice but to oppose any Bypass due to these larger forces much to the chagrin of Lynchburg, etc.

    Under these conditions Bypasses do not work. Period.

    One cannot blame VDOT for the whole problem.

    Warrenton has three “Bypasses.” When the first one (Broadview Ave/ Lee Highway) was proposed, VDOT wanted to make it limited access, key citizens pushed the Town to opposed this configuration.

    Now there is talk of a fourth and fifth Bypass.

    EMR

  20. Ashley Colvin Avatar
    Ashley Colvin

    As someone who watched 29 North develop from nothing but cow pastures just north of K-Mart, I’ve always thought there was one major problem to fix, with one (it would seem) simple solution. There are too many traffic lights. Why oh why does Fashion Square need two lights? (Not counting its accessibility from Rio Rd.). Why is there a light at Angus Road–folks are just about to get on the bypass and they are stopped. Can we connect Seminole Ct and Pepsi place, and get rid of the light at Seminole Ct and 29? (Make folks turn east at Greenbrier Dr.) And what about the light at Albemarle square Road–is it needed? Sure, the lights at Greenbrier & Rio might have to be longer, but at least you stop less often. And if overpasses are ever built, surely then those lights can go.

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