Making U.S. 29 safer for pedestrians

This post is definitely a throwback to the early days of this blog, where I was so excited about the prospect of social media. This is an attempt to get excited again about the prospect of social media to help make this place a better community. 

Yesterday, I sent out multiple tweets about my riding the bus as way to test out my ability to get around Charlottesville without a car. 

I think purchasing this 30-day pass for the Charlottesville bus system may change a lot of my habits. For instance, I'm home now thanks to getting a ride, but I think I'm going to head back downtown to try out the Route 6.

I want to make this work. I want to drive less.

— seantubbs (@seantubbs) March 21, 2019

I had a lot of people view my tweets throughout the day. One problem with Twitter for me as I am posting things is that I don't always get the chance to respond. When I was a reporter, I seldom did so because I had to keep so many of my thoughts to myself.

Now, though, I have the ability to use replies from people as a way to prompt conversations, and also to help track down information. Even though I am not a reporter, I am paid by the Piedmont Environmental Council to help people in my community learn what local government is doing - or isn't doing - to address the impacts of growth.

The above tweet prompted this reply:

In the county, I see people get off the bus on one side of 29 and then have to play Frogger to get to the other side. Pedestrian safe crossings are few and far between in the county.

— Auntie Faintly (@FaintlyMcAbre) March 21, 2019

This is a fair point and this frustration is shared by many people.

This is an issue in many places in the County. I can take the 11 to work from home and back. But on the return, I have to cross Rio at an intersection with no walk signal provisions at all. (Rio and Greenbrier, which is part county, part city).

— Braaaaainssssss (@desirosie) March 22, 2019

Auto-focused commercial development has been the predominant growth pattern on U.S. 29 for decades. As farm land and forest was converted into shopping center after shopping center, the roadway performed double duty as a major north-south highway. As part of a deal known as the Three Party Agreement, the road was widened in the 1990's to help improve capacity and to avoid building a bypass through the watershed of the community's reservoir.

So, that explains why the roadway is so wide. It wasn't designed for pedestrians in mind, though there are sidewalks on either side of the road from U.S. 250 to at least up to Rio Road. The problem is that there are no crossings in the Albemarle County portion, mostly because the distance to travel is so wide. Vehicle throughput is the primary function.

The future can't continue this way, and Albemarle government is aware of this. One small bright spot is that Rio Road and U.S. 29 no longer cross each other. A plan to build that bypass was rushed through by the McDonnell administration but the project had many flaws and was not continued by the McAuliffe administration. The McDonnell administration had transferred over $200 million to the bypass and when the project was killed, all the funding transferred to make improvements in the U.S. 29 area.

One of those improvements was the grade separation of Rio Road which for the first time offers a signalized crosswalk across U.S. 29. Granted, pedestrians and cyclists have to cross about 200 feet to get from one side to the other, but it is a start.

Commercial shopping centers are not the future of U.S. 29. Many storefronts built in the 1970's and 1980's are empty. We have already begun to see a wave of redevelopment projects, such as one that could see a portion of Seminole Square Shopping Center converted into 350 units built above retail establishments along a linear park.

I'm hopeful that as this redevelopment occurs, the U.S. 29 corridor will improve. My job is to help people understand what's already underway to address infrastructure needs such as pedestrian bridges. I can only get so much into a tweet, however.

There are efforts to get some in place but funding requests outstrip existing money. Documenting this with data is key to making future requests and getting the infrastructure in place.

— seantubbs (@seantubbs) March 22, 2019

Transportation planning along U.S. 29 is relatively fresh. In the past year, there have been new small area plans for the Rio Road area and the Hydraulic-U.S. 29 area. Both plans noted the lack of pedestrian connectivity.

I acknowledge that many are not interested in reading planning documents like this, but I'm here to help translate some of the jargon. Over the months and years, I am going to help work toward making sure the individual projects called for in these plans are put in places that are a little more accessible.

Pedestrian bridges can tend to be expensive and you'll note this list of transformative projects in the Rio Road small area plan doesn't call for any. However, there is a call for a pedestrian underpass just north of the Rio Road grade separated interchange. This would take advantage of an existing culvert.

The Hydraulic small area plan does call for a pedestrian bridge at Zan Road. This was discussed at a meeting on March 7, 2019 and it's worth further exploring. I wrote about it for internal use at Piedmont Environmental Council but Allison Wrabel wrote about this for the Daily Progress. I really more people to know about this concept. Perhaps I'll share what I wrote with the public in the near future.

This post is a test and I'm going to end it here and start up another one transit and groceries. I want to find ways to harness Twitter to capture conversations about our future and how we can work together on projects to make the community better.