We’ve got the wrong bypass

By The Daily Progress

Published: October 29, 2008

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

We also have the wrong bypass plan.
Lynchburg and Danville are engaging in what one Charlottesville-area official calls “saber-rattling” in their demand that the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization be forcibly disbanded and that the area “give back” $50 million that had been allocated for a U.S. 29 bypass.
There is some rationality in their demands: We do need a bypass — just not the one we’ve been offered. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
First let’s talk about the absurd claim that the MPO should be replaced by a group that would approve the bypass plan. As local officials have pointed out, Lynchburg and Danville have no more business telling us what to do with our MPO than we have telling them what to do with their Chambers of Commerce.
The MPO is a federal agency. This particular MPO is designed to coordinate transportation planning for Charlottesville-Albemarle, not Lynchburg-Danville.
As for “returning” the $50 million, most of it has been spent. It was spent in good faith, in the expectation of building a bypass. Most of the money was used to buy rights-of-way.

County Supervisor Dennis Rooker has a fair proposal in suggesting that the property be sold back to the private market, and the money be used for other, more viable transportation projects.
“Viable” is the operative word here.
Lynchburg and Danville just don’t get it. The bypass route that’s currently on the books would not meet their goal of moving traffic quickly and efficiently along the U.S. 29 corridor.

They think the $50 million was a waste? What about the $300 million that would be spent to build a road that would simply dump traffic right back into a congested corridor?
Here’s where Lynchburg and Danville are right: Charlottesville does need a U.S. 29 bypass. Virginia needs a U.S. 29 bypass. The nation needs a U.S. 29 bypass. Commerce needs to flow efficiently along this national route, and Charlottesville should abandon its provincial attitude about not building the the road.
But right now we have the wrong bypass plan. Building it would be a disaster.

We can, and must, do better.