Businesses wary of U.S. 29 study

A new U.S. 29 study is making some take a closer look at how to maintain profitable local businesses while trying to smooth out traffic on the consistently bottlenecked road.
“It is going to be a trek to balance the competing interests on the corridor,” said Dennis S. Rooker, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and one of two county officials on the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The study, to be completed by the Virginia Department of Transportation, will examine 219 miles of U.S. 29 from Danville on the North Carolina border to Gainesville near Interstate 66. While studies on the thoroughfare have been done in the past, the most recent will be the first to look at the entire road.
“It’s probably one of the longest corridor studies we’ve ever done,” said Charles Rasnick, who works for VDOT and is the study’s project manager.
Rasnick, who spoke to the area planning organization Monday, said the study will examine data already collected about travel information, as well as collect new land use data, plus information on why the corridor is important to local residents and goals for future safe transportation.
Part of the study’s recommendations include coming up with an access management plan for the roadway and to control local land use. Rasnick said that any corridor like U.S. 29 needs to have access control so that the road is safe for through-traffic and for those who are trying to get to local businesses.
Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum, a local business advocacy group, found it troubling that the state agency may try to limit access to the area’s most lucrative commercial corridor.

“The concept of a limited-access throughway is not uniformly accepted as a solution to the transportation issue,” he said.
Despite that it carries large volumes of local traffic, U.S. 29’s primary purpose, Rasnick said, “is to carry long distance travel,” because it has been designated by Congress as a national highway system route. The title is the next designation after an interstate.
Referring to local business access, he said, “Any of the those types of land uses can be served through a local street.”
Albemarle Supervisor David L. Slutzky said that bringing cohesion to the corridor has value, but raised the notion that local business interests may not be completely in line with the importance of having through-traffic.

“Those are potentially in conflict with each other,” he said.
Slutzky added that he wants to make sure VDOT embraces the county’s Places29 Framework Master Plan, a $1.25 million planning project that lays out a 20-year vision for new transportation, community facilities and more for the U.S. 29 north area.
Joe Springer, project manager with the Parsons Transportation Group, the study’s consultant, said a key aspect of the study is balance, making sure that individual studies about certain U.S. 29 sections are incorporated into the new analysis.
So far, he said there has been agreement about road safety, mobility and development among many localities that are involved. VDOT is traveling to seven other cities along U.S. 29 — including Danville, Lynchburg and Culpeper — to garner feedback.

“There is a large consistency in some of the goals,” Springer said during Monday’s meeting.
VDOT will meet with the Commonwealth Transportation Board in November to present its recommendations.