Dear Blake and Meredith,

We are very discouraged and disappointed by your letter of December 20, in which you try to justify your support for granting VDOT an easement through McIntire Park for the proposed Meadowcreek Parkway(MCP).

You say that the MCP is necessary to make Downtown accessible to people in the region and that it will relieve congestion along Park Street.

As for making downtown accessible, our own observations of traffic movement along the McIntire Road-Ridge Street axis clearly indicate that the great bulk of the traffic goes straight through. We have asked you in the past for evidence that this is not the case, but have gotten no reply.

With respect to congestion on Park Street, in the absence of a grade-separated intersection of the MCP and the 250 Bypass, backups on the Southbound MCP would be so bad that motorists will continue to use Park Street . You have not insisted on a committment to a grade-separated interchange as a condition for your approval for the MCP.

In addition, a large proportion of the Southbound traffic on Park street takes the 250 By-pass headed for Pantops, and it seems clear that much MCP traffic would do the same. As far as we can see MCP would not serve as a conduit into the city, but rather as a means to connect North , South and East County regions.These connections could be accomplished more easily by the proposed eastern connector and southern parkway. After those are in operation, it’s likely that a higher proportion of MCP traffic would actually be city-bound.

You say that you are committed to a regional transportation plan and that “The city has articulated the terms and conditions set out for the Meadowcreek Parkway with VDOT and Albemarle County.”

We do believe that you are committed to a regional transportation plan, but think that it would be a big mistake for the MCP to be the first component. We need to have concrete evidence that VDOT is committed to the regional plan by allocating funds to do the planning for the rest of the network. If MCP is built as the first part of the network ( with or without a grade separated-interchange at the 250 By-pass), we can look forward to a long, perhaps indefinite, period during which increasing numbers of vehicles go through the city instead of around it.

You say that as Democrats, “We risk being defined by the Meadowcreek Parkway while the real defining issues for the city are neglected. We cannot allow this to happen.”

By this statement you seem to imply that Kevin and Maurice are diverting the Democrats from their concerns for “social and racial justice, educational excellence, participatory democracy and economic prosperity for all “. To us, it seems that it is your attempt to use a questionable legal maneuver to promote a project that will do the city more harm than good that has been the trigger for whatever distraction may result.

Finally, we resent this appeal to us as Democrats. We don’t see this as a partisan issue (witness your Republican ally.) We believe it is a city vs. region issue. As you know we are strongly in favor of regional planning and cooperation. But regionalism requires benefits for all parties. In the past Charlottesville has borne the brunt of providing most of the low-income housing for the entire region. We should not now shoulder the burden of meeting most of the transportation needs of the region. Until we hear much more from you about the evidence for your belief that Charlottesville will benefit from the MCP before other components of a regional network are built we will continue to oppose the project.

Sincerely,

Gene and Jane Foster (electronic mail, December 24, 2003)