The Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and state Sen. Steve Newman are asking the governor and attorney general to help break “a 20-year impasse on the proposed Charlottesville bypass of U.S. 29.”
Rex Hammond, president of the Lynchburg chamber, said, “The communities along U.S. 29 that have already built their bypasses,” including Lynchburg and Culpeper, “would prefer that Charlottesville keep its promise,” made when the community accepted $50 million in state funds to acquire right of way and make plans for a bypass.
Albemarle County instead has continued to route U.S. 29 through a commercial strip with about 20 traffic lights.
Hammond blamed the impasse on “a small group opposed to the bypass.”
A spokeswoman for Gov. Bob McDonnell, Taylor Thornley, said the office is “evaluating all options to determine what the best solution is to solve Albemarle County’s transportation needs.”
McDonnell cabinet officials are meeting with Charlottesville-area leaders to talk about their plans, Thornley said.
Newman said he’s hoping that McDonnell, a Republican, will be more responsive to Lynchburg’s concerns than Virginia’s previous two governors. Democrats Mark Warner and Timothy M. Kaine didn’t put any pressure on the Charlottesville region concerning the U.S. 29 corridor, Newman said.
“It was very clear that the Warner administration was opposed to our efforts, and the Kaine administration was, in my opinion, hostile to our request for the Route 29 Bypass to become a priority,” Newman said.
“Now that we have a governor that I think we can work more closely with, we would first like to assess where we stand,” Newman said.
Newman said two public-opinion polls in the Charlottesville area have shown its citizens support a bypass, as well.
The Lynchburg chamber asked Newman to seek an opinion from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on three questions.
The first question involves the possible return of the acquired right of way to its original landowners if the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization removes the bypass from its six-year plan for transportation needs.
Another question involves a consultant study completed last year by Parsons Transportation Group that originally showed possible bypass routes east and west of Charlottesville. Those routes were deleted from the study before it was presented to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, and Hammond said they should be restored.
Third, Hammond asks that Cuccinelli determine whether the Charlottesville MPO has in fact removed the bypass from its six-year plan.
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