Lynchburg, Danville want bypass built

Business advocates in Lynchburg and Danville are calling for the ouster of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization, citing the agency’s reluctance to move forward with a $300 million bypass around Charlottesville’s heavily traveled portion of U.S. 29.

The chambers of commerce of Lynchburg and Danville have sent letters to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the Federal Highway Administration and others in a coordinated effort to force the Charlottesville area to either build the long-planned bypass or return $50 million that was allocated for the project nearly 20 years ago.

“The issue is far too important to the future of the U.S. 29 communities to ignore any longer,” Rex Hammond, president and CEO of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. “For 18 years, the Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO has failed to advance any plan for a U.S. 29 Bypass. It is scandalous that $50 million of taxpayer money has languished for 18 years.”

Lynchburg and Danville leaders have long advocated for the so-called western bypass because they believe it would improve the flow of traffic through the U.S. 29 corridor. They see U.S. 29 as essential to manufacturing businesses, tourism and general commerce. And they worry that the “choke point” in Charlottesville threatens their economic vitality.

“As you may know, U.S. 29 is a highway of national significance and one of three major north-south corridors through Virginia,” wrote Laurie S. Moran, president of the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, in an Oct. 3 letter to Kaine. “Because there is no interstate highway in our region, the cities of Lynchburg, Danville and Culpeper and connecting counties heavily depend on U.S. 29 for the efficient transport of goods and travelers to and from the adjoining eastern states. Lynchburg, Danville and Culpeper have already completed the bypasses of their communities to contribute to the smooth flow of traffic on this important highway. Meanwhile, Charlottesville has demonstrated no willingness or intent to move forward with a bypass of its city.”

Charlottesville-area officials, however, have a different perspective.

The proposed bypass, they say, would be extremely expensive and would have little impact on traffic along Charlottesville’s portion of U.S. 29. Virginia Department of Transportation studies have shown that roughly 90 percent of traffic on the highway is from local residents. Only 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles daily pass through Charlottesville’s stretch of U.S. 29 from outside Albemarle County to a destination outside the region, according to VDOT research cited by county Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker.

“Lynchburg and Danville, I guess, want us to spend $300 million to handle maybe 1,800 vehicles coming through this area,” Rooker said.

The state does not want the bypass, he said, because it makes no sense from a cost-benefit analysis. “It’d be an immense waste of state money,” he said.

Charlottesville-area residents also do not support the proposed bypass, Rooker said. If built, it would cut through seven neighborhoods and run past six schools.

The vast majority of the $50 million allocated for the project was spent on acquiring land in the bypass’ right of way. Rooker said he supports Virginia selling off the property and spending money on other improvements along the U.S. 29 corridor that would reduce traffic on the highway.

The project remains in VDOT’s six-year improvement plan for the Charlottesville region. Rooker said he suspects it has not been removed because “politically, no one wants to offend Danville or Lynchburg.” At the same time, he said, no one who has looked objectively at the bypass project believes it is a good idea.

VDOT spokesman Lou Hatter said the bypass project has been stymied by a lack of funding and mixed public support. VDOT, he added, is conducting a study of the U.S. 29 corridor from Northern Virginia to the North Carolina border. The study aims to plan out the best course of projects to improve traffic on the highway for the next 50 years, he said.

Hammond said Charlottes-ville-area officials are simply keeping the bypass on the books to hold onto the money and have no real intention of ever building the road. “They’re playing a game,” he said.

Rooker denounced what he called the “absolutely ridiculous” demands by Lynchburg and Danville to remove the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization. Only the federal government, with the consent of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, can dissolve the transportation planning commission, he said.

“We don’t presume to go down to Lynchburg and tell them how to spend their transportation dollars,” Rooker said.

Albemarle County Supervisor David L. Slutzky, chairman of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization, referred to the chambers of commerce of Lynchburg and Danville as “those rascals downstate.” Their calls for his board’s dismissal, he said, carry about as much weight as him calling for the sacking of the head of the Lynchburg Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s a foolish notion,” he said. “It’s grandstanding. It’s inconsequential. It’s saber-rattling.”

The two chambers say they have scheduled meetings with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Adminis-tration to discuss the removal of the existing Charlottes-ville-Albemarle MPO and replace it with a board that has a mandate to build the bypass.

Gordon Hickey, press secretary for Kaine, said the two chambers are scheduled to meet with Secretary of Transportation Pierce R. Homer on Tuesday. However, he said, the state’s lack of transportation funding makes the whole argument a bit academic.

“The bottom line is there’s no money,” he said.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board announced last week that it is facing an estimated $1.9 billion to $2.4 billion transportation funding shortfall over the next six years.

Business advocates in Lynchburg and Danville, Slutzky said, continue to misunderstand the fundamentals of the issue. A bypass would do little to improve traffic, he said.

“A bypass might save them 5 minutes. Maybe,” he said. “But it’s going to cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars.”

If Lynchburg and Danville really want a bypass in the Charlottesville area, Slutzky said, they ought to tax their own businesses and residents to pay for it.

The Charlottesville-Albemarle MPO, he said, is trying to solve the U.S. 29 congestion problem by vastly expanding the local transit system and by seeking the authority to create a regional transportation authority that could raise taxes to finance effective local transportation projects.