On a windy, overcast Wednesday morning around 8am, traffic already piles up at the intersection of Route 250 and McIntire Road. Most of those idled drivers can see the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS) building and its parked fleet of white and neon orange emergency vehicles. The volunteer rescue and ambulance service responds to about 30 calls a day, most between 8am and 8pm, whether traffic accidents, chest pains or shootings. The vehicles roll from the CARS parking lot to thread their way through the crowded intersection.
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Currently, the average response time for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad (CARS) is 9 minutes, 95 percent of the time. But sometimes responses are unusually slower, because the dispatcher will need 10 to 30 seconds just to figure out the nature of the emergency. The traffic at the intersection of 250 and McIntire Road, futhermore, does not help. The proposed 250 Interchange may change this scenario, but it’s not yet clear how—other than that CARS will likely exit further up McIntire Road as the Interchange eats up space. “We exit directly into the intersection in front of all the traffic. We also have the possibility to control the traffic signals,” says CARS Chief Dayton Haugh. |
Right now, explains CARS Chief Dayton Haugh, “We exit directly into the intersection in front of all the traffic. We also have the possibility to control the traffic signals.” Exiting the station, then, is not as difficult as it first appears. The proposed Meadowcreek Parkway 250 Interchange will almost certainly change this scenario, but it’s not yet clear how—other than that CARS will likely exit further up McIntire Road as the Interchange eats up space. “It’s entirely possible the Meadowcreek Parkway may improve response times north of town. It’s really going to depend on the design of the intersection and which way we go. But I don’t know that I have the perfect answer,” says Haugh.
At public meetings, the design of the Interchange has been criticized for a variety of reasons, but at the November 16 City Council meeting, Mayor Dave Norris, who said that he will vote against the project, was still concerned with the rescue squad exit, which, as it is now designed, will force each ambulance to back track to McIntire Road.
Haugh has talked to VDOT and the City about possible answers. He most recently met—last Thursday—with Mayor Dave Norris and Councilor David Brown. Neither VDOT nor the City, however, was available to comment to C-VILLE on how the interchange’s design considered CARS, or how the interchange might affect CARS during construction or after completion.
Nonetheless, aside from weather, traffic most systematically influences CARS emergency response times. If the design reduced overall traffic, the change in where ambulances enter the road may be less crucial.
But overall response time is vital to people in emergencies. After being dispatched for calls in the city, CARS currently arrives at the scene within 9 minutes 95 percent of the time, according to data Haugh collects and regularly analyzes. But sometimes responses are unusually slower, because the dispatcher will need 10 to 30 seconds just to figure out the nature of the emergency. If the call comes in while the crews are asleep, it adds a few more seconds for everyone to wake up. Calls to the county vary more, but even there, the average response time is around 9 minutes.
Comparing individual response times can become tricky, because each call is different. Unlike fire trucks, which leave from the same stations every time, “about one-third of the time, we’re leaving from a hospital, so it doesn’t tell you if the response times are getting better or worse,” Haugh says. But over time, CARS response times have been surprisingly consistent. The question is how, if at all, the interchange will change that.