George,

An item on the January 17 city council agenda (available on charlottesville.org/citycouncil) is identified as "Meadow Creek Parkway Programming Resolution." If this item passed by council, I believe the city will move beyond having the option to select the no-build alternative without paying a huge penalty - reimbursing ALL of the funding VDOT has put into this project since its inception somewhere in the 2-3 million dollar range - should the city cancel the project for any reason.

Presentations to council by its consultants and staff have shown that building the parkway with an at-grade intersection at route 250 bypass will not succeed in meeting the traffic demands at that intersection and would operate at a level of service 'F' on opening day. Council's proposed action to move the parkway project forward is based on their belief that the funding made available through Senator Warner's actions will allow that the parkway will never open with an at-grade intersection but with a grade-separated interchange funded separately from the parkway. The proposed resolution for council approval is an effort to have these projects work on the same schedule while keeping the parkway and interchange projects separate.

Unfortunately, no intersection designs have yet been developed - or even drawn on the back of an envelope - that demonstrates that the parkway / interchange can meet the projected traffic demands for those facilities. Although the project might not fail as miserably as the intersection at route 250 bypass, but that it still will not meet VDOT performance standards for design year traffic. This very issue was discussed at the Route 250 Bypass / McIntire Road Interchange steering committee meeting on January 11, 2006, and both design consultants and VDOT staff present agreed that none of the currently proposed interchange designs would meet an acceptable level of service.

I believe that council should not approve the programming resolution until such time that some reasonable transportation solution - with or without and interchange - can be developed. To ensure that the parkway and interchange are developed on the same schedule it is essential that the projects be combined into one project so that a comprehensive, and well considered solution to our future traffic needs can be developed before we spend many millions of dollars on a parkway and an interchange that do not work.

I hope that those opposed to the parkway--and those in favor of a parkway--recognize that this is not a project about political power, but that we are all looking for a sensible and cost effective solution to our traffic demands. A poorly planned and constructed parkway and interchange will not serve us well now, and will cause unimaginable traffic and funding problems well into the future.

I urge all interested members in the community to contact council members and urge them not to commit to this resolution given that no reasonable solutions have yet even been proposed.

- Peter Kleeman (electronic mail, January 13, 2006)