Dennis Rooker will not run for reelection to the Board of Supervisors in the November election, Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. He’s represented the Jack Jouett district for three consecutive terms. He simultaneously announced and endorsed the candidacy of school board member Diantha McKeel, a political independent who represents the same district. (Her disclosed state political contributions have all been to Democrats.) McKeel, who works for the UVA Medical Center, made her own announcement, in which she said that she would serve in the fashion that Rooker has.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith
Page 14 of 549
Interim Charlottesville Treasurer Jason Vandever has won today’s special election to make his position official. The Democrat defeated independent candidate John Pfaltz handily, winning three-quarters of the vote. As NBC-29 points out, the low-turnout special election cost $19 per vote cast. Originally, Vandever was to remain interim treasurer until November, but city Republicans petitioned the court to hold a special election, promising the judge that they would nominate a candidate (which they then failed to do), leaving one of those petitioners—Pfaltz—to run.
A self-serve auto repair shop is opening in town, Amy Vu reports for NBC-29. The Auto Hobby Shop provides a facility stocked with space and equipment, and customers pay $28/hour to make use of it. It’s not a new concept, but it’s the first such facility in the area. They’re just off Preston Ave., on the corner of Dale Ave & Albemarle Street, and expect to open their doors next week.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization wants to re-study the possibility of an “eastern connector,” Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. As the planned western bypass will route traffic around the city to the west, the idea is to have a corresponding road routing traffic around the city to the east. Of course, the bypass already does both of these things, so this would be another bypass bypass. The idea is basically to connect these two points:
If this seems familiar, it’s because we’ve already gone through this. At a 2007 public hearing, the public overwhelmingly opposed it. Then, in 2008, $500,000 in studies found that every possible road alignment was either ineffective or impossible. So later that year, both the BOS and City Council shelved the matter, and in 2011 the BOS finally eliminated it from their plans entirely. Without carving an entirely new road through a densely settled, suburban portion of the county, studies found that the only remaining options wouldn’t actually save anybody any time. Starting it farther north would be plowing through Forest Lakes, ending it farther east would go through Keswick estates.
So what’s changed? Well, nothing, except that there’s a $250,000 federal grant that the MPO figures they could get to study the ecological impact of an impossible or ineffective new road. Supervisors Rodney Thomas and Duane Snow say that they’d want the road to bypass Pantops entirely, since that’s become such a tangle, but doing that would involve going either over or through the Southwest Mountains, a feat on the scale of Claudius Crozet’s famous tunnel through the Blue Ridge, with the added twist of having to then run the road straight through some of the most valuable estates in Virginia. More than a century ago, there was a road crossing the Southwest Mountains at Hammocks Gap, as a part of the route to the Rivanna River from Milton but that was abandoned in favor of less arduously steep routes to the north (now Route 33 in Orange) and to the south (now 250 over Pantops).
And the cycle begins again.
An internal VDOT report finds that the design of the Western Bypass, as accepted in the form of the lowest bid for the project, requires an average of nearly three minutes to clear the southern interchange. As Sean Tubbs explains for Charlottesville Tomorrow, entering the bypass bypass from the south, on Old Ivy Road, involves intersections and traffic lights, rather than a standard flyover entrance ramp, a decision apparently made to save money. Although that saves tens of millions of dollars, it also adds 1:48 to the average trip. Some years ago VDOT found that the road would only save an average of something like 90 seconds over the existing route; adding 108 seconds to that would appear to negate its benefits. (If any total time-saved numbers have been calculated for the planned design, over the existing 29->bypass->29 route, I’m not aware of them.)
Since this is the obvious route for traffic leaving big events at Scott Stadium and the John Paul Jones arena, that means big delays and long lines to get onto the road. Adding to the difficulties, part of how the ostensible cost of this project was shaved down to $136M is that, accelerating away from that light, vehicles will be going up a 11.4% grade. It’s difficult to overstate how steep that is. The steepest highways in the country include I-70 in Colorado when crossing the Rockies (8%), and I-17 out of Phoenix (7%). US-64 in Tennessee used to get up to 8% when going over Monteagle Mountain, but that was too dangerous, and has since been reengineered to be less steep. So trucks pulling away from that light are going to take a very, very long time to get up to speed. These two factors probably do a lot to explain the extra 1:48 that this intersection-based entrance ramp will result in.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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