The following story appears in the Fall 2010 Piedmont View.

Once again, VDOT is planning for road building projects that we don’t need and can’t afford!

Less than a year ago, PEC had to mobilize a citizen outcry against proposals for multiple new roads through the Piedmont.  As a result, VDOT dropped plans for three new roads from its blueprint for the Rt. 29 corridor.

This summer, we had to sound the alarms again, with an action alert about four unnecessary proposed road widenings in our region. In response, citizens sent 200 emails to VDOT.  The latest news is that VDOT has dropped plans to widen Rt. 15 and Rt. 20.  It appears that plans remain on the books to widen Rt. 66 and Rt. 211, so we still have work to do pushing for sensible solutions that we can afford.

The draft 25-year plan that VDOT put out this summer acknowledges the importance of good land use planning to take pressure off of the state’s roads.  But many specific proposals in the plan focus on the same old counterproductive strategy: pave, pave, pave. Even if we could afford it, it’s a bad plan.  Building major roads through rural areas is an invitation for sprawl, and sprawl is the number one reason why so many of our roads are congested today. 

Throughout our region, PEC is working with citizens, localities and VDOT to think outside the box, generating cost-effective transportation solutions that make our communities better—like the Route 50 traffic calming project that has dramatically reduced congestion at Gilberts Corner in Loudoun; the community-based vision for a redesign of Rtes. 22 and 231 through Keswick in Albemarle; plans for an improved network of local roads to take pressure off of Rt. 29 in the Charlottesville area; and simple smart access management strategies that can take improve safety and traffic flow on Rt. 29 through Fauquier. 

Read more from the Fall 2010 Piedmont View