The last chapter in the controversial history of the area’s oldest road project took place May 11, when the parkway formerly known as Meadow Creek was dedicated to its biggest benefactor, former U.S. Senator John W. Warner.
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors first approved a 2.3-mile road that would connect East Rio to McIntire at the U.S. 250 bypass in 1967. For much of its 48-year history, the parkway often seemed unlikely to ever get built. That changed when former Albemarle supervisor Forrest Marshall asked his friend Warner for help, and the then-chair of the powerful Senate Armed Forces Committee earmarked $27 million for a grade-separated interchange in 2005.
The senator known as the Prince of Pork inspired the naming of the parkway for Warner, according to Marshall, who said he was in West Virginia, where “everything is named for Robert Byrd,” while very little is named for Warner in Virginia.
Protesting that he was “an average guy” who didn’t want his name on the project, the 88-year-old former husband of Elizabeth Taylor was on hand with many who had supported the parkway during its long history, including former Charlottesville mayors David Toscano and Blake Caravati, and former Albemarle supervisor and delegate Peter Way.
Warner, sporting a UVA baseball cap, graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1953, and he stressed how important Charlottesville had been to him throughout his career, and how mutually interdependent the University and the community around it are. “One cannot exist without the other,” he said.
“This road project divided our community for decades,” said Delegate Rob Bell. Now that it connects northern Albemarle with downtown Charlottesville, he said, “It unites and creates one community.”
The dedication of the $74-million project that was built in three phases took place at the new and improved Dogwood Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which, Toscano pointed out, no one could see before the parkway was built.