George,

A terrific task for the new 25 member Strategic Planning Committee recently appointed by City Council is to assess current traffic circulation and parking issues in and around the downtown mall area, followed by development of a strategic plan to address traffic and parking needs in a comprehensive manner. This new committee is an excellent group to bring together all of the downtown traffic and parking stakeholders and explore the broadest range of ideas possible in meeting the needs of our business owners, visitors, neighborhood residents, and regular users of the downtown mall.

I encourage council to ask the Strategic Planning Committee to address these issues, and to provide the committee sufficient staff assistance and other resources necessary to develop a strategic plan for downtown in the months ahead. I believe consideration of a vehicular crossing of the mall could be one of many possible ideas that that the committee would explore, but it should be considered as one of many possible elements of our downtown strategy. Other elements for consideration in that plan would include when and where parking should be provided to meet peak parking demands during events, or provide parking when current parking structures are full without needing a $1 million mall crossing; better integration of University and Charlottesville transit service to reduce both traffic and parking congestion downtown; and introduction of new ideas such as an expanded rail based trolley system serving downtown, the university, and ultimately other commercial, residential, and recreation areas in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

I would be more than willing to provide input to the Strategic Planning Committee in this effort, and I am sure others with expertise in sustainable development, urban planning, architecture, and related areas would provide input to develop a strategic traffic and parking plan. I invite the members of the downtown business community and others to join me in my request to council to delay any decision on a downtown mall crossing until such a project can be shown to be a necessary element of a truly comprehensive strategic downtown plan. The future of the downtown mall is of great importance to all of Charlottesville, and we all need to work together to determine and realize a future downtown mall that works for all of us.

- Peter Kleeman (electronic mail, April 3, 2006)