Category: transportation

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If Traffic at Old Trail & WAHS is Bad Now …

What’s it going to look like when there are 2200 homes rather than 250?

Traffic on Old Trail Drive at 8:50 am

This is the traffic nearly every morning during school drop-off time.

I wonder if any kids from Old Trail will ever walk to school.

Update:

From an offline commenter:

Why do you assume the problem is Old Trail KIDS??   Tell ALL of the WAHS parents to use the buses we tax payers pay for and quit using Old Trail Drive as a short cut to drop their kids off. Take a look at the bus stops in Old Trail and count the number of students going to all three schools by bus.
 

The students living in Old Trail will walk to all of the schools after the county gets off of it’s arses and puts in the promised walkways up to 250 and and down 250 for access to all schools as promised.

Update #2: The offline commenter raised a very valid point; I called and asked if I could use the comment in the post and we had a good conversation about the post, traffic, bureaucracy and other such matters. The point I wanted to convey is that this is not an Old Trail (which is a great place to live) issue, it’s a Crozet issue. I’d bet that at least 60% of the traffic in that photo aren’t from Old Trail but are from Crozet.

We’re in this – this traffic and lack of infrastructure and lack of common sense culture – together.

(did you notice the mountains in the background of the photo?)

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Closing Jarman’s Gap for the Summer?

Brilliant. I’m no engineer, but I’d wager that they would finish it in a month if they were properly incentivized.

Newsplex reports:

At its regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors is expected to endorse a resolution supporting the temporary closure of Jarmans Gap Road (Route 691).

The Virginia Department of Transportation has recommended a complete closure of Jarmans Gap Rd. to traffic for approximately 60 days during the construction project to allow for the installation of a precast box culvert at Powell’s Creek.

The road closure would be coordinated with the summertime public school closing, June through August of 2011. VDOT advises that during the school year, Jarmans Gap Rd. will be reduced to one lane of traffic, as necessary. Complete closure of the road would expedite the installation of the culvert and shorten the overall length of the project.

This could be damaging and isolating to Downtown Crozet. On the other hand, it could provide an opportunity to further develop its own identity.

VDOT’s Dashboard for the Jarman’s Gap project.

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Jarman’s Gap Road Set to be Improved

And it might happen in my kids’ lifetimes.

A $13.5 million project to widen a stretch of Jarman’s Gap Road in Crozet will be advertised for construction in January 2011. The right of way phase for this project first began in 1998.

“Given the amount of development that has taken place, the improvements are important for providing adequate access,” said chief planner David Benish in an interview. The project will also add sidewalks and a bike lane, which will make downtown Crozet more accessible.

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Tree work on Jarman’s Gap

I’ve fielded a couple of questions over the past few days …

Any idea why they are doing the major tree clear cutting on jarmans rd? Could this be for the widening/sidewalks or dominion clipping to prevent power outages?

And:

Over the past 2 days they have been taking down what appears to be most of the trees on the southern side of Jarmans Gap Road starting from the west end. Is this for the sidewalks? Just curious if you happened to hear anything, sorry if I missed anything about it.

So … what’s going on?

From Jack Kelsey with the County of Albemarle:

The sidewalk will be on the north side of JGR only. Utility relocations are planned for the south side and must be completed before VDOT bid the construction contract. So the tree removal is most likely associated with the utility relocation activities.

And from Howard Tomlinson, Project Manager of VDOT confirms:

Yes the sidewalk is planned only on the northern side of Rte.691 under the UPC 11129 project. Any tree removal at this time will be for utility relocation.

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Albemarle County to Announce Pedestrian Safety Grant

From the press release:

Pedestrian safety near Crozet Elementary School will get a major boost thanks to a state grant award that will be announced on Wednesday, May 12, at 1:00 pm at Crozet Elementary School by Board of Supervisors Chairman Ann Mallek, School Board member Barbara Massie Mouly, and Crozet school officials and parents. Details of the grant and the specific improvements it will fund will be outlined at the press conference.

I’m looking forward to seeing how “near” is defined. And “major.”

Either way, walking to Crozet Elementary is a good thing. As is “walkability” for home prices.

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VDOT Takes on Old Trail Drive

Thanks to Channel 29: (bolding mine)

A new Albemarle County Board of Supervisor’s resolution calls for a nearly one-mile stretch of Old Trail Drive in Crozet to be accepted into the state road system. Part of it was accepted into the system 2009, so this will complete the process.

…

“Old Trail Drive, in its entire length from Jarmans Gap Road to the other connection point at Route 250, has always been intended to be a pretty major traffic thoroughfare in Crozet,” she said. “The Crozet master plan presents it that way.”

There have been discussions over the years on RealCrozetVA about the accessibility of Old Trail Drive, and now it’s officially a public road. Great.

Related reading:

VDOT helps builders and citizens adjust to new secondary street standards

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Trying to maintain 250 as a scenic byway

From part four of Charlottesville Tomorrow’s excellent series on traffic –

Scenic 250 formed as a grassroots organization in 1997 to protect the rural character of the highway. According to steering committee member Scott Peyton, it was a coincidence that the Virginia Department of Transportation launched a pivotal study of 250 that same year.

“It was a watershed moment,” Peyton said. “We had been previously unaware of VDOT’s plans to widen the road.”

VDOT’s final report in January 2000 recommended the widening of 250 west to four lanes between the US 29/250 Bypass near the Bellair neighborhood all the way to the railroad trestle crossing the Mechums River.

Scenic 250 vigorously opposed the road’s widening, a recommendation that VDOT made over the objections of the citizen committee participating in the study. The public argued that it made no sense to widen 250 when it ran parallel to the existing I-64.

With the strong support of Supervisor Sally H. Thomas, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in May 2000 that committed the county to protecting the road as a two-lane scenic corridor all the way west to the county line. VDOT conceded that 250 was used largely for local traffic, and if residents wanted to deal with the congestion, that could be a local choice.

Since 2001, the traffic on 250 west has increased on all the sections measured annually by VDOT. Near Yancey Mills and Old Trail, traffic is up by 28 percent as of 2008. However, the section from Miller School Road to the Mechums River is up 48 percent over the same period, and from there to Ivy it has increased 41 percent.

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Jarmans Gap Improvement Cut?

From Charlottesville Tomorrow:

The Commonwealth Transportation Board will vote this week on ways to deal with a $851.5 shortfall in VDOT’s Six-Year Plan. Among the cuts is nearly $7 million for Jarmans Gap Road, a key infrastructure project supporting the Crozet Master Plan, adopted in 2004. The project currently has an advertisement date of January 2011, but that is likely to change if the cuts are approved.

Read the whole story and get involved.