George,

A recent Daily Progress lead editorial declared that building the Meadowcreek Parkway is "unequivocally" in the best interests of the City of Charlottesville; I would like to refute that claim. The Progress' conclusion seems to be based on the idea that without it, County shoppers will stop coming into the City for their purchases, thus depriving the City of urgently-needed tax revenue. Does anybody really believe that even with the proposed parkway, Forest Lakes residents would drive past Lowe's in order to shop at Martin's Hardware in the City? How about when the numerous large commercial developments in the County (e.g. Albemarle Place, Target) come to fruition?

The fact is that the types of businesses in the City are different in character to those in the County. A large percentage of taxable purchases in the City are from local restaurants and mom-and-pop stores, whereas the County is more enamored with big boxes and chain restaurants. City establishments derive a fair amount of their appeal in their very proximity to downtown or the University, regardless of how convenient it is to drive there from the hinterlands. Building the parkway isn't likely to noticeably affect sales at these kinds of businesses. The few large retail stores in the City (e.g. Best Buy, K-Mart) are primarily located on Route 29 and would garner no benefit from a new parkway to downtown.

Furthermore, almost all of the projected new traffic on the proposed parkway is likely to come from 29 North, where residential and commercial development in the County has concentrated in recent years. How exactly are all these cars going to get to this new parkway? Anyone who has navigated the Rio-29 intersection during rush hour can attest to how inefficient this intersection is for moving large volumes of traffic onto Rio Road East, the only direct route to the parkway.

Finally, the current design of the parkway is a 2-lane road terminating near downtown that is intended to divert traffic from a 2-lane road terminating in downtown. How is that an improvement over the status quo? Granted, a small group of City residents on Park Street would appreciate this change, but this is a very inefficient way to improve their plight. I can sympathize with their desire for traffic reduction since my neighborhood (Greenbrier) also suffers from quite a bit of cut-through traffic for County drivers heading downtown. However, a more logical transportation solution would be to focus on improving traffic flow on Route 29 from Rio Road down to the 250 Bypass. If traffic could smoothly travel this route uninterrupted (perhaps via proposed grade-separated interchanges), the best way to get to downtown from the North would be via Route 29 and the 250 Bypass, a route that was intended to handle lots of traffic in the first place. This would benefit everyone in that local residents - City and County alike - could finally access the numerous shopping centers along the route without interminable delays, and Park Street residents would return to some semblance of peace and quiet.

Who, then, is the proposed parkway supposed to benefit (albeit marginally) at a cost of prime, precious urban parkland in the City? Answer: County residents who would be coming into the City anyway. Perhaps there are good reasons why there has been City resistance to this ill-fated parkway ever since it was proposed over 30 years ago.

Pete Brecht (electronic mail, December 18, 2003)

Author's Note: An abridged version of this letter was faxed to the Daily Progress on 12/9/03.