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David Cramer Duxbury, a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, is frustrated by the traffic along U.S. 29. He writes:
I was so excited to see that people out there (on the web) actually care about the U.S. Corridor, formally designated as Corridor 17. I am a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, and am tired of the growing traffic on Route 29. I live in one of the several developments north of Charlottesville, and five days a week I must drive down it to get to school. Several years ago the highway was widened, but not al the way up to many of the northern developments.
Every morning on my way into school, I see many cars attempting to jam the four lane (two lanes each way) highway until it widens into eight lanes (four lanes each way) at the South Fork of the Rivana River. Cars drive at upwards of seventy miles an hour in the 55 mph zone, and when they get to a stoplight, slam on their brakes, leaving you to slam on your brakes. The road has many hills and one can not see traffic lights until he or she is insanely close to the light. This combined with aggressive and fast driving is a cause of many accidents. Finally, Route 29 widens to four lanes. This allows the aggressive drivers to slalom down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic. Oftentimes, drivers speed down the right hand lane, and nearly rear end some poor guy who is slowing to turn right off of the highway because at many strip mall entrances there are no right hand turn lanes.
At the southern end of the eight lane highway, all travelers who wish to continue south on Route 29 have 1/4 of a mile to switch into the right lane and exit on e a one lane ramp and continue south. There are about three or four traffic lights in this short stretch of road, so many vehicles cut across all three lanes of traffic, often only ten or twenty feet before the ramp because the only sign showing that Route 29 traffic must get onto the 250/29 "bypass" is about twenty feet before the ramp. Also, as you get onto the ramp, big rigs often have to slowly creep up the ramp, and stop or slow down to merge because there really is no acceleration lane.
Heading north if just as tricky. Once again, Route 29 traffic must squeeze onto a very tight one lane cloverleaf ramp. At the bottom of this ramp the lane continues north, but some vehicles must turn into this lane to get to another cloverleaf ramp. This creates a bewildering sight of cars cutting across multiple lanes of traffic. Anyway, northbound traffic is not that bad until the highway narrows from four to two lanes northbound. At first, one lane turns into a right hand turn lane, and most people are nice enough to switch over. After that stop light, the next right lane turns into a right hand turn lane. This is what really gets me mad. A lot of people seem to think that this is a perfect opportunity to speed down that lane and cut in front of somebody just as that lane turns right. I almost got side swiped once by someone who tried to cut in front of me. He did not have his turn signal on, as most people who do this trick. He just zipped right in front of me.
I think that many of these problems could be alleviated with the construction of (a) a Route 29 bypass and (b) the widening of Route 29 north of the South Fork of the Rivana River. Also, the creation of interchanges, preferably SPUI's (Single Point Urban Interchanges) at intersections such as Rio Road and Route 29, and Hydraulic Road and Route 29 would help eases the congestion. I think that a good example for how Route 29 could be upgraded is Branch Avenue in Southern Maryland.
U.S. 29 in North Carolina
North Carolina plans to upgrade U.S. 29 to Interstate standards. To this end, one ongoing project is the resurfacing and paving project along a 4.6-mile stretch of U.S. 29 in Guilford County, with an expected completion date in the summer of 2000. On May 22, 1999, Scott Kozel reported that on his journey along U.S. 29 in North Carolina, he counted 17 at-grade intersections and 15 driveways. These connectors were not in one general area but rather scattered throughout the stretch. These connections will have to be eliminated if the highway is to be upgraded to Interstate standards. In addition, the paved shoulders are only about three feet wide. Widened shoulders, service road construction, and grade separated interchanges will have to be constructed prior to U.S. 29 becoming Interstate standard.
In April 1998, it was announced that the segment of U.S. 29 from Greensboro north to Danville would be slated to become Interstate 785. On May 22, 1999, Scott Kozel wrote, "I was on U.S. 29 from Danville, Virginia to Greensboro, North Carolina. I saw trailblazers on the roadside every five miles or so, with an Interstate shield and "785" in the usual route portion, and "Future" in the top part where "Interstate" normally goes. As far as I know, the future Interstate 785 designation on U.S. 29 will run from Interstate 40/85 at Greensboro to the north end of the Danville bypass."
Since much of the U.S. 29 corridor is slated for improvement (with the possibility that the corridor would become Interstate standard), will all of U.S. 29 become Interstate 785 through Virginia? Perhaps the idea is to slowly develop a new Interstate corridor north from Greensboro via Danville and Charlottesville, to Interstate 66 east of Washington, DC. If this were to come to pass, the new Interstate 785 would be an awfully long road, especially for a three-digit Interstate.
Some in the misc.transport.road newsgroup feel it could become part of mainline Interstate 85, but it's hard to say what will happen now. In my opinion, this stretch of U.S. 29 should become Interstate 85 while the original part of Interstate 85 from Durham north to Petersburg would make a good southern extension of Interstate 97 (it would connect with already existing Interstate 97 via U.S. 301 between Richmond and Annapolis). I would recommend either calling this road a northern extension of Interstate 85 or a southern extension of Interstate 83.
U.S. 29 in Virginia
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has commissioned studies on the entire U.S. 29 Corridor during the 1990s.
According to Scott Kozel, "This has been studied before, [as] there were newspaper articles about it back in the 1980s and early 1990s. It would be an Interstate highway along the U.S. 29 corridor from Interstate 40/85 at Greensboro, North Carolina, to Interstate 66 at Gainesville, VA. Since the Virginia Interstate 81 widening program planning studies began in the mid-1990s, I haven't seen anything about the U.S. 29 Interstate. Other than new bypasses at Lynchburg-Madison Heights, Charlottesville, and Warrenton-Gainesville, I don't think that any other new expressway bypasses will be built for many years to come."
Criticism to VDOT Regarding the Charlottesville Bypass
I have learned much about highway location studies and environmental impact report development from the VDOT web page. However, Larry Gross researched the following information from the JLARC site for the Virginia General Assembly. The following excerpt from that report relates the proposed U.S. 29 bypass around Charlottesville to the Virginia policy on the Highway Location Process.
While the highway location process appears to work relatively well in most in-stances, JLARC staff's review of the location process used for improvements to Route 29 in the Charlottesville area raises some concerns about the process in that case. The issue of how to address traffic problems on Route 29 has been extremely controversial. In recent years, there have been strong divisions among various local citizen groups and between local governments in the Charlottesville area regarding how to resolve transportation needs on Route 29. In addition, there has been tension between local transportation interests and regional and State interests which has further complicated the situation.
Over the last 20 years, VDOT as well as local officials have studied the issue of how to meet both local and regional transportation needs along the corridor. In 1987, an extensive location study was conducted to analyze how best to resolve the traffic congestion on Route 29 both for local users as well as through traffic. The study revealed that a combination of improvements would need to be undertaken in order to solve the congestion problem on Route 29 and to meet regional transportation needs.
Based on the location study and VDOT's recommendation, the Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted the following sequence of improvements:
- Widen existing U.S. 29
- Construct three grade-IV separated interchanges on existing U.S. 29; and
- Construct a bypass if justified in the future based on traffic conditions.
A subsequent Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) has significantly altered the initial location decision by withdrawing the inter-changes and proceeding with construction of a western bypass. A review of the process for this project raises some concerns about how the process worked in this case. The CTB's reversal of its prior decision regarding the interchanges, the participation of a CTB member with a personal interest in the decision process, and the lack of coordination between the widening and interchange projects all raise concerns about the process in this case as well as some broader concerns about the overall process.
Although the process does not appear to need major changes, several aspects of the process need to be addressed. There are several procedural weaknesses related to the CTB's role in the location process. Decisions to rescind prior location decisions of the CTB should be made only after the public is provided with a formal opportunity to submit input through the public hearing process and after sufficient technical analyses have been prepared to assess the issue. In addition, members of the CTB should be expressly precluded from participating in decisions that directly impact their personal interests. Furthermore, local governments should be given the opportunity to directly address the Commonwealth Transportation Board prior to location decisions that directly impact their locality if there is disagreement over the preferred alternative between an affected locality and VDOT or between two or more localities that will be directly impacted by a location decision.
The JLARC review also found that the public participation process could be strengthened. While the current open forum type of public hearings appear to be popular, VDOT still needs to provide the public with the opportunity to provide input through the traditional hearing format in addition to the less formal open forum style hearing. VDOT also needs to establish regulations to govern its public participation process, as well as a written guide for citizens that explains the process.
Another concern raised by the JLARC review was the recent use by VDOT and the CTB of the major investment study process to select a mile-wide location corridor for a proposed new road. It appears well established that the major investment study process, which is a federal process, is intended to be used as a planning tool to evaluate the "purpose and need" for projects and to evaluate what mode of transportation would best meet that need. The process is not intended to be used to determine the location of proposed road projects.
Despite the defined purpose of the process, VDOT has used the major investment study process to select a mile-wide corridor in which to construct the proposed Western Transportation Corridor project. The use of the process to select a location corridor appears to be inconsistent with its intended purpose and raises several concerns. Localities are likely to rely on the assumption that the project will be limited to the corridor approved by the CTB, which is not necessarily the case. In addition, the use of the process to select a location raises the concern that the expenditure of funds on corridor selection during the MIS process may not have been an efficient and effective use of funds and, similarly, that funds may not be efficiently spent on the upcoming environmental impact statement process if the study is too narrowly focused on a single mile-wide corridor.
At the southern end of U.S. 29, at the Danville bypass, a lone trailblazer was posted at the south end of the 17-mile-long U.S. 29 Danville Expressway for Future Interstate 785. The bypass was completed in late 1996. It is built in a four-lane limited access right-of-way, and the southern nine miles and the northern one mile is a four-lane freeway; and the intervening seven-mile-long section is two lanes wide with one temporary at-grade intersection. According to the VDOT Six-Year Improvement Program, in late 1999 a project will be started to provide the parallel roadway and grade separation. When that is completed, the entire Danville bypass will be built to full four-lane freeway standards.
Page Updated June 9, 2002.
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