County and City cooperate on 29/250 intersection

Albemarle Place is all but a done deal—a deal that in the next several years will bring 700 residential units, a new hotel, roughly 40 shops and a giant movie theater to Route 29, just north of Hydraulic Road.
    What does all this new development mean for the congestion triangle at Route 250, Route 29, and Hydraulic Road? A huge chunk of Albemarle/Charlottesville residents pass through that area everyday, with daily traffic counts averaging 60,000 vehicles—90 percent of which are local.
    The City and County are working together on the issue, since the area also marks the jurisdictional lines between Charlottesville and Albemarle. The short-term focus is to create an extra lane going onto 250 West from 29 South—also known as the “Best Buy on-ramp”—which would also add a lane at that intersection for 29 South. The County recently requested that State legislators facilitate State funding for this project.
    In an unusual twist, the County is even considering giving the City money collected from Albemarle Place developers, who have proffered to pay for traffic improvements north of the project. Board of Supervisors Chairman Dennis Rooker says that the County might amend the Albemarle Place proffer so that it can go toward the Best Buy on-ramp. “It’s a joint City-County-State-developer conversation,” says Rooker.
    “This is a pretty unheard of, for the County to use that [money] for the City,” says Harrison Rue, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson District Planning Commission, which helps coordinate joint efforts between local governments. However, as yet there is neither cost estimate nor engineering plan for the project.
    As for a split-grade intersection that would run 29 underneath Hydraulic: Rue says that the decision depends on the final plan from consultants for Places29, a comprehensive transit and land-use study on the stretch of 29 between 250 and Greene County. Rue expects consultants to recommend a split-grade interchange for Hydraulic and 29, though he also anticipates they’ll first recommend a split-grade interchange for Rio Road and 29.