Connector prospects look bleak

Preliminary cost estimates and the bleak prospect of increased transportation funding have tabled the Eastern Connector, leaving Charlottesville and Albemarle officials with even fewer options for getting the project under way.

“I don’t know how the thing will ever get built at this point unless the funding situation changes,” said Jim Tolbert, Charlottesville’s director of Neighborhood Development Services.

The road, whose development became a condition for City Council approval of the controversial Meadowcreek Parkway, is designed to ease congestion on U.S. 250 by connecting northern Albemarle with the growing Pantops area.

A report presented by Lewis Grimm, a consultant with PBS&J, to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday showed cost estimates as high as $169 million. Both the most and least expensive options — the lowest estimated at $40 million — would drive the road through the city-owned Pen Park.

“There’s no money on the horizon to do this,” said Kenneth C. Boyd, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

In fall 2006, city and county officials got serious about the project and fronted $500,000 for an alignment study. But its development has floundered, with area officials butting heads over the road’s purpose and concerns about commitment to see the project through.

Recommendations were also delayed for months while more specific cost estimates were compiled for the various road options — each one wrought with problems.

Albemarle officials contend that the road should serve to alleviate traffic on U.S. 250 near the Rivanna River crossing. In 2006, 52,000 vehicles traveled daily between High Street and Route 20 on the bypass — up from 30,000 in 2001 — and Grimm said river crossing volumes are expected to increase by 47 percent from 2005 to 2025.

Charlottesville officials say the road should prevent traffic that originates in Albemarle from overflowing onto city streets.

Going through Pen Park to connect Rio Road with Route 20 was seen as the best option by the committee because it would divert the most daily traffic from U.S. 250 by 2025 — 10.4 percent with a two-lane road in Pen Park and 16.3 percent with a four-lane road. The other options would connect either Proffit Road or Polo Grounds Road to Route 20.

“Since we see this as a county road, it’s up to the county to choose how to best serve its constituents,” said Jeanette Janiczek, Charlottesville’s VDOT program manager.

However, city officials fronted half the alignment study’s cost, and the City Council has yet to schedule a time to hear the study’s recommendations — which say the road should be built through city parkland.

After the latest delay in compiling the committee’s recommendations and cost estimates, the council was supposed to hear the report during one of its September meetings — before the presentation to the county Board of Supervisors.

Grimm said that members of the City Council in recent weeks said a report from city staff about the project would suffice and the full consultant report could come later.

Tolbert said a written report would be presented to outline their views on the project, but it is unknown when that will be completed. The last time councilors heard a report on the connector’s status was in March, and several of them said they have not discussed the project since.

“It’s been awhile,” said Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris.

John Pfaltz, a city resident who is a member of the Eastern Connector committee, said both local bodies seem reluctant to take on major transportation projects despite increasing traffic volumes.

“Clearly, traffic is just developing too much around here,” Pfaltz said.

County officials insist that they are not putting the project to bed, but merely delaying it until officials receive more sound traffic data and evaluate the effects of an expanded transit network.

More specific origin and destination data will be provided as a part of the 2010 Census, something that Albemarle Supervisor David L. Slutzky said is essential to move forward with the project.

“Right now we don’t have good data on that,” Slutzky said. “We don’t know where they’re going.” Additionally, a more robust transit system may greatly affect traffic and, subsequently, the need for the connector.

“We might not need to build an Eastern Connector in the first place or it might greatly inform where it might be set up,” he said. Slutzky said he thinks it would be best to revisit discussion of the road in two or three years.

Paul Wright, president of the River Run Homeowners Association, said the need for the road may also change once the Meadowcreek Parkway is built.

Residents of River Run, which is adjacent to Pen Park in Albemarle County, have voiced consistent opposition about a major road cutting through parkland, echoing criticism of the Meadowcreek Parkway going through McIntire Park.

“We need to wait and see what happens,” Wright said, adding that current traffic data may not be accurate after the 2-mile parkway is completed. “It’s unknowable until the full impact of the Meadowcreek Parkway is put in.”