While it’s one thing to complain about Charlottesville traffic, it’s quite another to figure out how to manage it—and that was at the heart of a City transportation work session on January 18 with City Council (www.charlottesville.org). and the Planning Commission (www.albemarle.org).
 City Councilor Kevin Lynch called out Albemarle County for making the city a cut-through: "Since 1980, [Albemarle County] has essentially built a city the size of Charlottesville around Charlottesville and they’ve built exactly two roads. |
Giving officials philosophical discussion opportunities without requiring a vote can be a dangerous prospect. To help provide substance, staff hung maps showing the grade of roads throughout the city and showing major developments and employment centers around Charlottesville. The chief goal was to set goals, and during the hours allotted traffic engineer Jeanie Alexander wrote items like “improve the grid” or “not widen minor streets” on a giant Post-it pad.
The central topic was cut-through traffic, and though it started with specific streets like Calhoun and Old Lynchburg Road, several participants wondered whether as a whole the city, which has had a stagnant population according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is really just dealing with a major cut-through problem from the county.
“We’re not in a vacuum and there’s no wall, yet, or moat, around the city,” said Alexander.
“We’re working on that,” said City Mayor David Brown. At the time, it was a joke. But as the discussion continued, it was apparent that not everyone thought it such a bad idea. If the city is suffering from a county cut-through problem, reasoned Planning Commissioner Jason Pearson, “what are the professional versions of the moat around the city that are actually legal and appropriate?”
Councilor Kevin Lynch argued that the City shouldn’t build new lanes to make cutting through any easier. “Since 1980, [Albemarle County] has essentially built a city the size of Charlottesville around Charlottesville and they’ve built exactly two roads. …Guess who’s handling the rest of the traffic.”
Lynch shared startling figures that showed that current traffic counts in many cases approximate earlier projections made for 2020. In the late ’90s, “we were projecting 4,200 cars a day on Old Lynchburg Road by 2020. Now we’ve got 5,300.”
One version of moat-building suggested earlier in the week by Fry’s Spring residents didn’t get such a strong response, however. Their neighborhood association asked City Council on January 16 to close Old Lynchburg Road at the county line. But said Lynch, “It’s not in the Top 20 of our problem roads. …In absolute terms, it’s not that bad.” He and others acknowledged that road evaluating systems are driver-focused, but they also worried that squeaky wheels more often get the grease—and still keep squeaking.