City consultants presented a plan to improve transportation problems inflicted by highway U.S. Route 29 to the Places29 commission Tuesday. Places29 is an Albemarle County organization formed to find a way to ease congestion on the highway.
"This is a master planning process for the county and a transportation study that goes along with it and the county has asked its staff and consultants to prepare a draft master plan," said Judy Wiegand, city project manager of Places29. "At this point, consultants, with input from staff and public, have put together three alternatives and are asking the community which one they like."
Wiegand added that the consultants will present the choices to the public in mid-May.
The three alternatives all involve improvements to Rt. 29.
"The first one shows the improvements primarily on U.S. [Route] 29," Wiegand said. "The second one shows some improvements on 29 and other roads, and then the third one shows the Ruckersville Parkway as well as some of the other roads in the area."
Danny Kang, third-year College student and University Transit Service (UTS) bus driver, said proposed changes to Rt. 29 will be beneficial as the congestion routinely causes long delays for UTS.
"There is a lot of traffic, especially on the stretch from Charlottesville North to Ruckersville," Kang said. "If you go out there any time in the day, traffic is really bad especially during rush hour."
Kang, who has been a bus driver for a year and a half, also has experience driving a dump truck in the summer and said congestion in the area is an issue even without student traffic.
Wiegand said Places29 will also present the public with land usage information for its consideration.
"We'll be asking for [public] feedback in about three months from now," Wiegand said.
In order for this plan to work out ideally, a much of the public will have to express interest, Wiegand said.
"Our primary goal is that we get a lot of people to turn up at the meetings," she said.
She said members of Places29 will remain committed to the public and their transportation needs.
"We will show up for [public] presentations to say what alternatives are and we'll answer questions from different groups," Wiegand said. "We'll be posting alternatives on the Web site and we will be sending out an e-mail to all of the people who have been requested to be on the list about the choices that are available."
Kang added that the planned changes will benefit University students.
After the public votes on an alternative, Places29 will make that alternative their plan, Wiegand said. By December, the consultants will have completed the final plan.
"It goes through actual review-approval process and then goes in front of the board of supervisors early next year," she said. "Once it is adopted as part of the county's comprehensive plan, then we can start implementing."
Wiegand said the development of the plan will be gradual.
"It's a long process and the planning horizon is 20 years," Wiegand said.
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