The proposed U.S. 29 bypass of Charlottesville is back in the news again, with questions that state officials need to address, and quickly.
It was back in the early summer that Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton breathed life back into the long-delayed project through lobbying members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and with dollars the General Assembly OK’d to fund critical infrastructure needs in the commonwealth.
With lightning speed, the Albemarle board reversed its long-standing opposition to the western bypass, the regional planning board signed off and the Commonwealth Transportation Board allocated $197 million to the project.
The cost estimate Connaughton presented to the transportation board was $233 million. Of that, engineers said actual construction would cost $118 million.
And here’s where it gets a bit dicey.
Virginia Department of Transportation engineers, at the time Connaughton was presenting that $233 million figure to the CTB, were saying in internal emails that the final cost could easily reach $436 million.
Building the bypass to interstate standards and additional dollars for site preparation and excavation of about 340,000 cubic meters of rock are the main drivers of the higher estimate.
Conceivably, VDOT would need to find an additional $192 million to finish the project.
Foes of the bypass — the Charlottesville Albemarle Transportation Coalition, in particular — obtained those emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. A VDOT spokesman verified their authenticity.
The transportation coalition has been fighting the bypass for decades and, not surprisingly, trumpeted the emails as proof of some grand conspiracy on the part of Connaughton, VDOT and bypass backers to snooker the transportation board and ram the project through.
VDOT officials countered that the disparity wasn’t surprising at all, as some major aspects of the bypass were over-engineered. Besides, they say, there’s no way to know the actual cost until the contract is put out to bid, which might be this week.
VDOT officials also noted that projects have been coming in 15 to 30 percent under estimates, because of the weak national economy.
The Charlottesville bypass is too important to Virginia’s economy for questions to be hanging over it. Virginia has spent millions erradicating major traffic bottlenecks. Right now, only one remains: Charlottesville.
It is impossible to underestimate the regional importance of the Charlottesville bypass. U.S. 29 isn’t a local street in Charlottesville; it’s a federal highway of national importance. Keep up the pressure to get this highway under way, the sooner the better.
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