Charlottesville Bypass Now a Critical Need

The News & Advance
Published: April 29, 2008

How refreshing. A Charlottesville business group has offered its support of the long-needed U.S. 29 bypass around the city. Most officials in Charlottesville and Albemarle County have done nothing but resist the bypass for years.
A bypass around Charlottesville would untie the last remaining traffic knot on the U.S. 29 corridor stretching from Greensboro, N.C., to Northern Virginia.
Michael McGowan, outgoing president of the North Charlottesville Business Council, told the council and local elected officials last week that Charlottesville’s portion of U.S. 29 ought to be more of an urban boulevard on which local traffic and pedestrians can freely access local businesses.
A bypass around that section of highway north of the central city and University of Virginia would improve the area’s quality of life and business, McGowan said, by diverting trucks, buses and others who travel U.S. 29 through Charlottesville daily.
As it stands now, that section of U.S. 29 mixes local Charlottesville traffic with those vehicles passing through to create a monumental snarl that does nothing but bog down the flow of all traffic virtually around the clock.
Lynchburg has had a U.S. 29 bypass for decades. Culpeper and Warrenton have bypasses on U.S. 29. Danville completed its bypass several years ago and the bypass around Madison Heights that connects with the Lynchburg bypass opened about two years ago.
The only remaining bottleneck on the vital north-south U.S. 29 corridor through Virginia is Charlottesville.
Business interests from other localities on the highway gathered at the meeting last week in Charlottesville to impress upon Charlottesville the importance of moving toward construction of the 5.5-mile bypass around Charlottesville. It’s the No. 1 transportation priority of the business communities in those cities.
Rex Hammond, president of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, put it this way: “We’re waiting patiently for your community to become a part of the solution.”
One could excuse Hammond and others with business interests along the highway for running out of patience. They have been waiting for the better part of 20 years for Charlottesville to come to grips with the importance of constructing a bypass around the city to speed the flow of traffic on U.S. 29.
Laurie S. Moran, president of the Danville/Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce agreed with Hammond that traffic congestion on U.S. 29 in Charlottesville and Albemarle County north of the city is hindering economic growth in her community.
“For us, 29 is critical,” she said. “For our businesses, it really is the lifeblood for keeping the northern markets open.”
Moran said that relatively new companies in Danville, such as Swedwood, a furniture manufacturing division of Ikea, and Com.40, a mattress manufacturer and furniture upholsterer, require quick and easy access along the U.S. 29 corridor. The speed bump along the way is Charlottesville.
Albemarle Supervisor Dennis Rooker offered the latest excuse for why the bypass can’t be built. “The fact of the matter is that there is no money for this project,” he proclaimed.
The most important thing that Rooker and his colleagues must summon is the will to construct the bypass. They could get it on the books and have it ready for construction as soon as the money does become available. If they would move in that direction, a coalition of political and business interests from Danville to Gainesville could scrape money enough from the state transportation fund to pay for the bypass.
Is there really a change of heart among some business and local officials about a bypass around Charlottesville? Only time will tell. And the folks south and north of the city are quickly running out of that, and patience.