U.S. 29 plan seems stuck in gridlock

For anyone lamenting the perpetual stop-and-go on U.S. 29, Albemarle’s primary business and retail corridor, a way around the central strip isn’t likely for years to come.

While that is mostly attributable to the state of transportation funding in Virginia, it’s also because the planning for the corridor is running behind schedule.

The long-term plan, called Places29, would marry decisions on development to transportation. It was expected to be completed, and perhaps adopted by the Board of Supervisors, sometime this summer. Instead, planners are hoping the board will discuss it by late November or December after the Planning Commission reviews it.

“We all thought we’d be further along by now,” said Judy Wiegand, an Albemarle planner who has headed the project.

But Wiegand and Harrison Rue, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, said the project is extremely complex, more so than any other planning done in Virginia. That’s why it’s running behind.

“We want to bring something to the public that works,” Wiegand said. One example of a difficulty is choosing “priority areas,” or where the county should focus development over time, she said. Picking the right areas is challenging because planners must forecast which areas will be ripe for development sooner than others — and then choose the corresponding transportation projects that go along with it.

For some business owners along the corridor, the plan couldn’t be postponed enough. Some business owners say they are not sold on the planned overpasses for several key intersections along the route. For example, at U.S. 29 and Rio Road, planners are suggesting overpasses so that motorists can avoid U.S. 29 when traveling locally. But some business owners have dubbed the plan “Expressway 29.” They have said the construction of overpasses would be detrimental because they would make it hard for drivers to get to area businesses.

Planners say overpasses are the best way to reduce congestion in future years so that motorists will have options when traveling up and down U.S. 29.

Lloyd “L.F.” Wood, president of the North Charlottesville Business Council, said business owners in the area have concerns but are waiting on the plan to be finalized before lobbying for specific changes. Wood, who owns the Putt-Putt on Rio Road, near U.S. 29, said most are concerned that the future of U.S. 29 is an expressway rather than a “boulevard.” Business owners want shoppers and pedestrians to be able to get from business to business, he said.

“We’re interested in our local people that shop and travel [U.S.] 29,” he said.