Danville, Lynchburg cling to U.S. 29 bypass hopes

By Brian McNeill

Published: April 24, 2008

The No. 1 transportation priority of the business communities in Danville and Lynchburg is a 5.5-mile bypass around Charlottesville’s heavily traveled stretch of U.S. 29.
“We’re waiting patiently for your community to become a part of the solution,” said Rex Hammond, president and CEO of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Laurie S. Moran, president of the Danville/Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, agreed. The traffic congestion on U.S. 29 in Albemarle County is hindering economic growth in her community, she said.
“For us, 29 is critical,” she said. “For our businesses, it really is the lifeblood for keeping the northern markets open.”
Hammond and Moran urged the North Charlottesville Business Council and local elected officials Wednesday to tackle Charlottesville’s traffic “bottleneck” on U.S. 29.
Newly arrived companies to Danville, such as Swedwood, a wood processing and furniture manufacturing division of Ikea, and Com.40, a mattress manufacturer and furniture upholsterer, require quick and easy access through the U.S. 29 corridor, Moran said. The biggest speed bump along the way, she said, is Charlottesville.
“Anyone in the trucking business will tell you it’s a time issue,” Moran said. “Time is money.”
Michael McGowan, the outgoing president of the North Charlottesville Business Council, said that Charlottesville’s portion of U.S. 29 ought to be more of an urban boulevard, in which local traffic and pedestrians can freely access local businesses. A bypass around the local stretch of U.S. 29 would improve the area’s quality of life and business, he said, by diverting trucks, buses and others that motor along U.S. 29 in Charlottesville on a daily basis.
“If you’re driving one of those thousands of trucks that come through here, you’re probably going to be waiting 45 minutes to get through Charlottesville,” McGowan said. “Everybody else has solved the problem over time. We’ve been studying it.”
Both Danville and Lynchburg already have bypasses around their urban cores. Now it ought to be Charlottesville’s turn, Hammond and Moran argued.
Yet such a bypass in the Charlottesville region seems unlikely to be built anytime soon.
“The fact of the matter is that there is no money for this project,” Albemarle County Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker said.
Rooker said a proposed western bypass around Charlottesville — which would cost millions and would stretch from the area of the Forest Lakes subdivision in the north to the Leonard Sandridge Road exit of the U.S. 250 Bypass — would cut too close to several schools, including St. Anne’s-Belfield, Albemarle High and Agnor-Hurt Elementary.
However, Rooker said he does support finding a way to reduce traffic on U.S. 29. A 1990 Virginia Department of Transportation study, he said, found that a better method would be to construct overpasses along Albemarle’s stretch of U.S. 29.