Even as Charlottesville’s City Council recently opted against using a roundabout design for the Meadowcreek Parkway interchange, new traffic safety research by a Greene County organization indicates that roundabouts are a safer and more fuel-efficient alternative to traditional stop-and-go intersections.

In the coming years, McIntire Park will lose land to the Meadowcreek Parkway and a YMCA athletics center, reducing the greenspace in the heart of Charlottesville.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization looked long and hard into the future Wednesday afternoon, discussing both local and regional transportation projects aimed at alleviating traffic and easing mobility for anyone who sets foot in the area.

City councilors picked a design for a new interchange at the intersection of McIntire Road and the U.S. 250 Bypass on Wednesday, rejecting the option favored by a committee of residents.

A potential obstacle to the Meadowcreek Parkway was removed Thursday when the Charlottesville School Board voted 4-1 to donate approximately 8.5 acres at Charlottesville High School to the Virginia Department of Transportation for the long-planned project.

City councilors’ refusal last week to select a design for an interchange at the U.S. 250 Bypass and McIntire Road has clouded the project’s future and frustrated those who have spent nearly two years fashioning options.

Motorists should expect delays from 9 a.m. until noon Tuesday on East Rio Road.

The long-planned and long-delayed Meadowcreek Parkway suffered another setback Monday when city councilors declined to endorse a design for a new interchange for its southern terminus.
Councilors were presented Monday with two options for a rebuilt interchange at McIntire Road and the U.S. 250 Bypass. A steering committee of city officials and residents had recommended councilors approve a diamond-shaped interchange that would run the 30-foot-high bypass over an oval roundabout, with the final design to be fleshed out later.

The Charlottesville School Board likely will approve a land deal to make way for the Meadowcreek Parkway, but will probably attach several conditions because of safety concerns, the board’s chairman said Friday.

After nearly an hour of discussion Thursday, the Charlottesville School Board pushed off to its May 1st meeting a decision on whether or not to donate around 8.5 acres at Charlottesville High School to the Virginia Department of Transportation for the Meadowcreek Parkway project.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has asked the city School Board to donate approximately 9 acres for right of way and easements necessary to construct a portion of the Meadowcreek Parkway that will cut through Charlottesville High School property.

Though a committee of Charlottesville officials and residents has selected a design for the new interchange at McIntire Road and the U.S. 250 Bypass, another big hurdle looms: finding the money to pay for it.

RUCKERSVILLE — Greene County residents know the intersection of U.S. 29 and Route 607 as an infamous morning rush-hour delay, especially if they are crawling in the line of cars from the east.
“We talk about this every single morning,” said Roxcy Echard, an optician who lives a mile east of U.S. 29 along Matthew Mill Road and lines up early to inch past the Sheetz on her commute to work in Charlottesville.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday unanimously approved a large retail development that many in the shopping-deprived southern parts of Charlottesville and Albemarle County have said they welcome.

Virginia is only one of a handful of states in which secondary, local roads are constructed and maintained by a state agency.