For all of us who live on Rt. 20 north of Proffit Road, we know that there are only two vaguely-direct routes home: Stony Point Road from Pantops, and Proffit Road from 29 N. (When all else fails it’s possible to circle way around and take Burnley Station or, on the other side of the mountains, Stony Point Pass.) So when an accident closes off Proffit, things get kind of crazy. On Charlottesville Tomorrow, Brian Wheeler reports that Norfolk Southern needs to replace the single-lane bridge over Proffit this summer, so the road will be closed for a month or two. That would be the lovely, though rickety, wooden bridge that spans one of the sets of tracks in what was once the town of Proffit.
We’ll all be changing our driving habits for a while, I suppose.
Interesting that, according to Wheeler’s posting, the new bridge will remain single-lane. That seems at odds (in a good way, though) with what I take to be increasing pressures on Proffit Road (and Stony Point/Rt. 20) to absorb traffic in and out of Cville from the northern developments.
I can only think of one development that one would take Proffit to get to, and it’s pretty small. (Up by Doctor’s Crossing.) Though I could easily be forgetting some.
Still, though, I think you’re absolutely right — this is an interesting decision on the part of VDOT. (By “interesting,” I mean, of course, “awesome.”) Polo Grounds is also limited to one lane, where the tracks go over the road, and changing that anytime soon would be a pretty big deal.
Jim Utterback made it very clear the Norfolk Southern just wants to rebuild what is there. They call it “replaced in kind.” If VDOT was designing it, I expect it would be a different animal all together. For example, Dick Woods Road between I-64 and Ivy used to have 3 wonderful one-lane wood planked mini bridges. I call them wonderful because they really add to the texture of the rural area. One of them has been replaced with a two-lane paved version near I-64. Now you have no sense of the fact you are crossing a stream, and people drive faster on the road. Brian Wheeler
[…] County watchdog group Charlottesville Tomorrow reports that Proffit Road– the main north-of-town connection between Route 29 and Route 20– will be closed this summer for 30-60 days so that the cute wooden one-lane auto bridge over the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks can be replaced. In apparent deference to the historic Proffit neighborhood concerns, the bridge will remain a single lane wide, a move that prevents speedy thoroughfarism as vehicle must wait for vehicles traveling in the other direction to finish crossing. Blog journalist Waldo Jaquith notes that “things get kind of crazy” when Proffit Road is closed. […]