Road projects in region hit speed bump

Funding for Hillsdale Drive Extended has been pushed aside until at least fiscal 2015 as part of revisions made this week to the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Six-Year Improvement Program.

The one-mile connector road, which would link Hydraulic Road in Charlottesville to north of Greenbrier Drive through the Seminole Square shopping center in Albemarle County, is one of several projects in the area that has had funding adjusted in lieu of the $2.6 billion state and federal transportation shortfall over the next six years.

The draft program revision shows $1.3 billion in proposed reductions to highway projects and adjustments to public transit, rail, bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Hillsdale Drive Extended, primarily a city road project, is estimated to cost about $30.5 million, and developers have agreed to construct its first portion in as a new Whole Foods grocery and parking garage are built on Hydraulic.

While previous state documents showed that the road was supposed to receive up to $655,000 between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2014, about $3.1 million has already been spent on the road for design and engineering costs. The remaining $27.4 million has not been allocated.

Sue Liberman, director of the Branchlands Retirement Village located close to Hillsdale Drive, said she thinks the connector road would be an asset as long as there are sound traffic patterns. But, she said, the connector road would certainly impact residents, many of whom walk to a nearby senior center.

“I’ll tell you, right now it’s dangerous with people cutting through,” Liberman said.

But local officials say Hillsdale Extended, and other roads like it, are key to alleviating traffic on U.S. 29.

“It’s important to get that street through there,” City Councilor Julian Taliaferro said.

Albemarle Board of Supervisors member Dennis S. Rooker added that 90 percent of U.S. 29 traffic is local.

“Part of our strategy locally is to improve the parallel road network,” he said.

The state transportation cuts appear across the board, affecting interstates as well as primary and secondary roads. Based on current information for primary and secondary roads, Rooker said, the county is expected to have 10 to 15 percent of the transportation funds it received from the state six years ago before taking inflation into account.

Inflation on projects has been 10 to 12 percent per year over that six-year period, which essentially cuts actual transportation dollars in half, Rooker said.

Locally, a project to widen the Interstate 64 westbound exit at Fifth Street in Albemarle County, which originally was slated to get $779,000, has had the rest of its state funding pushed back. The same goes for a project on I-64 to construct left-turn lanes at a Shadwell exit.

County Supervisor David L. Slutzky said interstate projects are not as important as local road projects, but “They’re in the Six-Year Improvement Program and they are needed.”

In Charlottesville, apart from Hillsdale Drive funding changes, the revised program shows that $1.4 million will still need to be spent after 2014 on a Route 20 bridge replacement.

“We may possibly have to look at [local funding sources],” Taliaferro said.