A Charlottesville Bypass Alternative: the New 29
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the entire PURPOSE of a standard NEPA study is to COMPARE alternatives for cost and effectiveness.
But VDOT has a long history of rejecting anything that goes against their own doctrine and their doctrine is building roads – not retrofitting for transportation effectiveness.
Witness how long it has taken for a small contingent of VDOT to advance the idea of synchronization.
Such synchronization WAS suggested as an alternative to be studied in the Route 3/Outer Connector kerfuffle in the Fredericksburg Region and VDOT refused to include it by saying ahead of time that it “would not work”.
Now, a decade later, with no hope of that bypass being built, s small group of NoVa VDOT engineers has synchronized the lights on Route 3 to give – yes… that’s right the same travel time savings that the bypass would have given for 250 million dollars more.
The cost of the synchronization? Less than 100,000.
but remember, VDOT refused to even include it as an alternative.
Same deal in Charlottesville. VDOT likes to build roads – that’s their culture.
I applaud the SELC for ‘advancing’ the alternative themselves even if VDOT would not. In fact, that’s about the only way to get an alternative on the table when VDOT is in charge.
VDOT seems to be high on the idea of requesting open-ended proposals now days – for instance their recent RFI soliciting “ideas” for consolidation and operation of their traffic ops centers.
I wonder what would have happened if they had asked for RFI’s for Charlottesville to let companies themselves propose alternatives ?
VDOT has been downsized but they are still a very large organization and there are parts inside that deserve huge credit for their work but their planning division does not. They are as bad as they have always been.
SNARL!
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this statement in the local paper bodes ill, perhaps big ILL for the project:
“The last study, known as an environmental impact study, was concluded in 2003.
The Federal Highway Administration is expected to determine in the fall if further scrutiny is required. The environmental groups hope the FHWA will make a decision that stops the bypass once again.
If changes have been made to the proposed project — or new information has become available — since the original EIS that would lead to significant environmental impacts, a supplemental EIS may be warranted,” said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesman”
http://cvilletomorrow.typepad.com/charlottesville_tomorrow_/2012/07/bypass-alternatives-video.html
this project in all likelihood is going to get slowed down – and the more information that comes out is probably going to be adverse to a fast approval.
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Good points in the video and comments section. I expect over time the solutions depicted in the video will come to pass, and I hope they do. (Though imagine the disruptions to local traffic while the overpasses are constructed.)
For a different perspective, imagine you are driving to DC via 29 and I-66. And, you have been notified that the Culpeper and Warrenton by-passes have been shut down for good. But, not to worry; the traffic lights through those towns have been timed to optimize through traffic. They have even eliminated a couple of stop lights.
I’m afraid the world is full of by-passes for a reason. They usually work.
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re: bypasses “work”.
they do, I agree but they don’t come free in terms of money nor impacts to the built environment.
The bypasses around Culpeper, Warrenton and Lynchburg went through fairly rural areas where even though there were some impacts – no where near the scope and scale of Cville.
The correct analogy (I think) would be to ask how a 29 “bypass” would be built in NoVa.
A bypass is philosophically an abandonment of the original road instead of maintaining and preserving it as much for it’s transportation utility as for a local commercial strip venue.
but perhaps just as important a question is who should pay for a bypass – the community for which it serves or all Virginians?
Would the people of Cville or Warrenton or Culpeper or Lynchburg have agreed to pay higher taxes for their bypasses?
One of the reasons that VDOT is out of money is paying for projects that primarily serve a locality with money collected from other Virginians
So you build bypasses but you exhaust your funding ability in doing that.
What I DO agree with is that now days when a bypass is built, it is limited access and cannot easily be co-opted for commercial venues (and ultimately ruined as a result).
but they do not come cheap and a policy of building them sucks up state resources and ultimately results in zero-funded locality 6 yr plans as is now the case.
Across the state, the funding for localities has dried up because we’ve spent it all on new roads (that require maintenance and operations) and there is virtually no money left for anything but maintenance and ops.
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So why does VDOT insist on spending more money for worse results? Because they can. Developer greed blended with political payoffs is the usual cynical answer, and while that explains the impetus to begin these projects, it does not explain the passive acceptance by the public. VDOT reeks of authoritarianism, a “we are big and you are small so sit down and shut up” attitude. Sadly, we teach our children to defer to authority, and not to question it, and then wonder why developers get exactly what they want at our expense.
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Pekoe, I sympathise with your frustration but I don’t think it’s accurate to pin the Charlottesville Bypass on VDOT… or greedy developers. A political decision was made at a high level of the McDonnell administration, the transportation secretary gave VDOT its marching orders, and VDOT is doing what it’s told.
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I still think VDOT is at it’s heart a road-builder. If you ever have the opportunity to walk the right-of-way for I-95 in an area undisturbed since it was built, you will find concrete markers that say VDH.
VDH = Virginia Dept of Highways.
VDOT is the son of VDH.
VDOT still prefers building new roads over synchronizing signals and access management .. it’s a central part of their culture.
Engineers like to build …. operation and maintenance is not “engineering”.
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the video has good ideas to fix the spots. They will need to be done in addition to the bypass.
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