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I am interested in hearing comments on my proposal for a new alignment and approach for the Charlottesville Western By-Pass. I'll call my suggestion the Ruckersville Parkway, a four lane divided parkway, with a bike path and without commercial traffic. Like many others, I use the Earlysville Road to get to the airport. On one recent trip, I wondered if it would be possible to connect that road, State Route 743, with another one and go all the way to Ruckersville. As it turns out State Route 606, which is partially unpaved, connects with 743 and, does in fact, go to Ruckersville. I then began wondering how many commercial vehicles use Route 29. I am told by VDOT officials that somewhere between 6% and 9% of Route 29 vehicles are trucks. This is a very small number of commercial vehicles and lends itself to a different approach to the Western By-Pass, namely separating commercial and non-commercial vehicles on a new parkway. My proposal is to build a four lane, divided, commercial vehicle free, parkway from Rio Road to Ruckersville, leaving the trucks on 29. I am not sure how to connect this Parkway to 29, as I don't have access to aerial photos. I'll leave that issue for later. As for now, and with my most sincere apologies to those who live on these roads, I suggest this new By-Pass alternative. This Parkway would be similar in scale and design to the George Washington Parkway in Northern Virginia and the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, which parallels Interstate 95. It also has another practical benefit, which is using an existing road. By upgrading an existing roadway, we could solve an important practical problem of approving an entirely new alignment and by building this Parkway to Ruckersville we can overcome one of the major shortcomings of the current proposal, which is that the road is not long enough and therefore not truly a By-Pass. Finally, by limiting commercial traffic and large trucks (other than those which are conducting business in the neighborhood,) we solve one of the safety problems mentioned by the critics of the Western By-Pass. Bern Ewert (electronic mail, December 10, 2004)
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