Additional parkland – The County and VDOT appear to be amenable to adding parkland to replace the land lost to the parkway right of way. We should add specific language to the letter to specify that the functional value of the land must be replaced – not just a simple replacement of the land lost to the right of way. 

The City will be losing the use of a significant amount of prime parkland, plus the girls softball field. These should be replaced in kind with prime parkland, not just ‘residual parcels’ from the Parkway. Adding the entirety of the Wetzel Farm to the land acquired for right of way would be an appropriate exchange to make up for the loss to McIntire Park and the softball field, and would also provide an attractive amenity for the surrounding City and County neighborhoods. 

One way to arrange for the park land replacement would be for the City to be paid a reasonable price for the lost functional use of the park and softball field, to permit the acquisition of additional land. Regardless of the mechanism, Council’s letter to VDOT should incorporate sufficiently strong wording to insure that substantial parkland replacement actually occurs.

The July 20, 1999 letter to VDOT on the MCP reads “The City respectfully requests that VDOT acquire and donate to the City and County, as part of this project opportunity, the greatest amount of additional land as is possible north and South of Melbourne Road ….” 

The suggested replacement wording is: “The City’s approval for the Meadowcreek Parkway design shall be contingent upon the acquisition of substantial replacement parkland, by City, County and/or VDOT, totaling no less than 50 acres, to replace the functional use of the land lost by the parkway and to preserve the viewshed of Park St / Rio Road” 

All of parcel 168 (the 35 acre Hurt property) and a fairly large part of parcel 167 (the 33 acre Wetzel property) will be rendered inaccessible by the parkway and will have little value except as parkland. Adding all of parcel 167 to the park will preserve the viewshed of Park / Rio and  insure that the MCP is a true ‘parkway’. These two parcels total 68 acres, minus the amount taken by the Parkway right of way.

Supporting correspondence - It would appear that there is already broad, although non-specific support by the County, VDOT, and the CTB for parkland replacement. 

The CTB approval, as stated in a Sept 20, 1999 from J.T. Mills, VDOT State design engineer, stated that the final design would “provide the opportunity, if reasonable for the use of any residue parcels, acquired through the normal right of way acquisition process, as park property by the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County”  

In a letter from the County BOS, dated Sept 9, 1999, Charles Martin stated , “… the County has taken a strong position for the preservation of parkland with this project and has recently adopted a resolution that has been forwarded to the City and VDOT supporting the acquisition of additional parkland adjacent to Phase I … The County envisions the parkway having pedestrian and biking facilities along its entire length and, if feasible, connecting these facilities to the greenway proposed along the Rivanna River.”

It should not be difficult to move from broad but non-specific support towards a position that gives reasonable assurances that there will be a substantial replacement of parkland.

The Intersection – Both the 17 and 20 lane at-grade intersections seriously degrade the level of service of the 250 Bypass and must be rejected. The only solution that is capable of keeping traffic moving freely in the designated transportation corridor (the 250 Bypass) without significantly impacting pedestrian access is a grade separated interchange. The most promising of these designs use an overpass on 250 and one or two roundabouts to handle traffic on McIntire Rd / MCP as well as turning movements. As recommended in the Rieley interchange report, alternatives 3, 4 and 6 should be further evaluated. Alternative 6 should be especially considered because it has the least impact on the land and results in simpler turning movements. City approval of the Parkway design should be contingent on a grade separated interchange at the intersection. Actual costs may be significantly less than those proposed in the Rieley report.

At-grade shortcomings -  The 17 lane intersection results in LOS of F for all traffic movements, while nearly half of the movements fail for the 20 lane design. The May 31, 2000 analysis by HDR, the traffic consultant concludes that “This preliminary analysis concluded that both intersections operate at an unacceptable level of service”. Neither the 17 or 20 lane analysis anticipated that there would be any pedestrians crossing at grade. Any delay to accommodate walk signals would further reduce the level of service for vehicles. 

In addition, a 17 lane intersection is marginal from a pedestrian access point of view. For a 20 lane intersection, a pedestrian underpass allowed for pedestrians to go under the highway, however this raises safety concerns. In addition, the expense of building a pedestrian underpass would be a significant portion of the amount needed to build an interchange.

Interchanges - According to VDOT estimates (conversations with Don Wells), a standard diamond interchange could be put at this intersection for roughly 5 or 6 million dollars. However, this would likely result in poor levels of service for traffic turning left onto the 250 Bypass, either from McIntire Road or the Parkway.

Using one or two roundabouts to handle the turning movements results in the free flow of traffic on the 250 Bypass, as well as very good levels of service (B or C) for traffic on McIntire Road / MCP and for turning movements. 

Alternative 6 in particular looks very attractive for the following reasons:
1)	It takes up the smallest footprint, with minimal impact on the Vietnam memorial
2)	It results in simple turning movements
3)	It has the greatest aesthetic potential, as it creates a large open space in the center of the circle
4)	It could allow access from the rescue squad directly into the circle if necessary
5)	Combined with an at-grade circle at Melbourne road, it could provide a consistent and attractive theme for the Parkway as an entrance corridor into the City.

The cost may be reduced by using a single span bridge with several piers, rather than two bridges. Funds for the interchange could come from cost savings of reducing 4 lane design to 2 lane and from using money from Ivy Road widening (1.7M available immediately, 8.2M total over the next 5 years).

It has been proposed that because of the potential expense of an interchange, an at-grade intersection could be built first, to be followed by an interchange at some later date. This would be a poor decision for a number of reasons. 
1)	The intersection would fail at opening day. To build a road which degrades the performance of an existing major artery such as 250 defies logic. 
2)	The intersection would be unlikely to adequately provide for pedestrians, since there would be no underpass. 
3)	Once the MCP is built it may be harder to get parties outside of the City (County, MPO, CTB, VDOT) to agree to allocate significant funds to solve what will become a serious congestion point in the City. 
4)	There are a number of similarly congested interchanges throughout the region. It does not make sense to add another one. On the other hand, this interchange could serve as a model of how to improve other interchanges. As the experience of Route 29 has shown, once there has been a commitment to an at-grade crossing, it is very difficult to change.

Other Cost considerations – The actual costs of the interchange construction may be much lower than the figures given in the Rieley report. As a point of comparison, the projected cost of the interchange proposed by VDOT for Greenbrier road on Route 29 was 15 million dollars. Since the proposed intersection at Route 29 and Greenbrier was much larger than the one proposed at rt 250 and McIntire, it is questionable that the costs will be this high. Given that a standard diamond interchange can be built for 5 or 6 million dollars, a figure of 8 to 10 million for a roundabout design may be more appropriate. Before making decisions based on the currently available cost projections, Council should ask that these costs be verified independently. 
Regional Transportation and the Eastern Connector – It is clear that despite the City’s expressed intention that the Parkway not become a de-facto Eastern Connector, as presently conceived the Parkway will become exactly that. Furthermore, traffic modeling shows that the Parkway negatively impacts a majority of the residential City streets studied and creates congestion that is worse than in the no-build scenerio. Building the parkway can not be acceptable to the City, until a regional land use and transportation plan, which does not negatively impact existing City residents, can be created with reasonable assurance of implementation. Dialog between the City, County, University and VDOT should begin immediately, with the goal of having a workable regional plan by January (before the 29 Bypass lawsuit comes to trial).

The DISC, Commercial Corridor Study, Eastern Planning Initiative, CTS Transit Plan and UVA Master Plan can provide much of the ground work for such a plan, but they currently have no relation to each other. If implemented piecemeal, the affects on the City could be quite negative. The original 29 North Corridor Study, which provided the traffic analysis data leading up to the 3 party agreement is now 10 years old and should be updated. That study found that widening Route 29 and adding interchanges at Hydraulic, Rio and Greenbrier provided the most effective congestion relief for the region. These recommendations should be re-evaluated, to see if they are still valid, and to see if other network elements are needed, particularly in light of the increase in residential growth in the South East, commercial growth to the North, and new industrial park developments by the University.

City NeighborhoodTraffic - Nearly every City neighborhood has listed traffic as a ‘threat’ in its neighborhood plan, and most have requested specific traffic calming measures. At the most recent Planning Commission work session, the Planning Commission agreed to set a goal of 10 percent traffic reduction in the 5 year Comprehensive Plan. This will be impossible to achieve with the Parkway, as currently conceived.

If the City were to apply outcome based measurements of its traffic reduction goals to the Meadowcreek Parkway, it should be obvious that the Parkway is not an acceptable solution for the City, and in fact works against the City’s traffic reduction goals.

The Parkway does not address the most serious impending congestion crisis for the City, which is on the Eastern portion of the 250 Bypass (more than doubling to 83,175 cars per day under the projected no-build scenerio),  In fact, it actually makes the problem worse on the 250 Bypass. Furthermore, preliminary MinUTP model analysis by the City indicates that other than Park Street north of the Bypass, every single other residential street studied (including Park St. South of the Bypass, Locust Ave, Ridge, McIntire Rd and Monticello Ave) get more traffic

Traffic modeling – It should be no surprise that MinUTP modeling of the Parkway shows that traffic in the City will become worse on City neighborhood streets if the parkway is built. The model assumes that drivers crossing the City will seek to find the shortest trip time. Since the trip time through the parkway itself will be short, and the 250 Bypass East of the Parkway will quickly become congested, it is somewhat intuitive that drivers will travel through the City to get from the parkway to the residential growth areas of the South. This is confirmed by the fact that if the Parkway is not built, the roadways receiving the increase in traffic are Emmet Street, Hydraulic Road, 250 Bypass West of Barracks Rd and North Park Street. Furthermore, this data suggests that if the trip time on North Park Street is increased via traffic calming measures and the Route 29 corridor is made more efficient, the traffic reduction that occurs on North Park street will extend to other residential streets as well (although the reduction wont be as dramatic as for Park Street).

There are two additional factors that are not modeled by MinUTP but which will suggests that building the parkway will create even greater congestion than predicted by the model: The first is the fairly well documented phenomenon that individuals drive more daily miles if roads are added or widened in a region. In other words, even if the population of the region were frozen at current levels, adding the Parkway would increase both the number of trips and the length of trips made by existing residents. Second, building roads and other infrastructure has a tendency to accelerate commercial and residential development. While the Parkway is meant to be part of a 15-year transportation plan, studies show that 90% of increased metropolitan road capacity is filled with four to five years. 

Evaluating Alternatives and improving the model – There are a number of potential regional network improvements that should be evaluated with the existing MINUTP model to see if these result in an improvement for City neighborhood streets. These include extending Hillsdale drive to Hydraulic Rd, building the Southern Parkway, improving intersections on Route 29 and building an Eastern Connector which extends from Rio Rd to Route 250, North of Route 20, as proposed in the CATS 2000 study. If possible, the addition of high performance transit or light rail in the 29 corridor should be modeled.

One of the widely cited drawbacks of the MinUTP program is that its land use and transportation models are somewhat dated. Classifications are shown below:

Part of the Eastern Planning Initiative project plan was to create a new modeling program, which would complement MinUTP but which could model additional elements that may be more applicable to Charlottesville and the surrounding area. These include Mixed Use, Urban Village, Institutional (University, Hospital) and Integrated Corridor. The new model has been completed and it suggests that mixed-use and an aggressive transit strategy can reduce congestion. Similar conclusions have been reached in other communities. 

City Council would be acting in haste if it approved the Parkway without evaluating other alternatives, particularly those which incorporate mixed use and transit oriented development.

Need for immediate action - The language in the City’s letter to VDOT and the County is clear: “Council has no interest in this Parkway’s becoming a de facto eastern connector … The parkway should be viewed as only one part of the regional transportation solution”.  

While representatives from VDOT and the County have expressed sympathy for the City’s position, neither VDOT nor the County have given any specific assurance that the Parkway will not be used as an Eastern Connector. The County’s letter stated “The County shares the City’s interest in developing a better regional network of roads” and suggested the City should look to the CATS plan (which has no eastern connector) and the Eastern Planning Initiative for guidance. VDOT did not address this issue at all.

The following table is from the TJPDC build-out analysis, done in October 1996

	C’ville	Albemarle	Fluvanna	Greene	Louisa	Nelson	Region	
1990 population	40,341	76,084	12,429	10,297	20,325	12,861	173,437	
Build-out population	46,607	321,502	134,200	44,494	256,092	190,576	993,471	

The build-out numbers, which reflect the amount of by-right development under current zoning, show that the vast majority of new development will occur outside of the City, making highly suspect the wisdom of building additional regional network roads in the City , particularly with no commitment for roads or other improvements elsewhere in the region. Once the Meadowcreek Parkway is built, growth in the outlying counties will create pressure to widen it, along with the 250 Bypass, unless there is a commitment to build a regional network before the Parkway is in place.

The lawsuit over the 29 Bypass is expected to come to trial in January. It is likely that the City could help to strengthen the case against the Bypass, but it is not at all clear that it would be in the City’s best interest to do so. In fact, the evidence seems to point to the opposite. However, if project funding for the Bypass could be used for regional network improvements that would show greater benefits to the City (such as Route 29 improvements, creation of a high performance transit corridor along Route 29 and roads to serve the growing Eastern part of the region) then it might be in the City’s best interest to actively work to strengthen the lawsuit. This would suggest that the City and County would be well served to commit to a regional transportation and land use plan within the next several months.