Pedestrian bridge over U.S. 29 opens while work begins on Old Lynchburg Road roundabout

Any transportation project that ends up getting built goes through many stages with candidates competing with each other in the idea stage for both community support and funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The construction phase for a project comes after all designs have been drawn up and after they’ve been funded. In recent years, Albemarle County and the Virginia Department of Transportation have used a strategy to combine several into one in order to achieve efficiencies.

That’s the case for a five projects under the Albemarle Intersection Design Bundle 2 one of which got under construction this week. That’s a four-leg roundabout at the intersection of Old Lynchburg Road and 5th Street.

“The project will convert the existing unsignalized intersection into a safer, more efficient configuration that reduces conflict points and improves traffic flow,” reads an information release sent out on November 17. “The improvements will also enhance pedestrian and bicyclist access throughout the intersection.”

A bus shelter will also be installed as part of the project. The cost estimate for all five projects in the budget is $42.3 million and the others are:

• A roundabout at the intersection of U.S. 250 (Rockfish Gap Turnpike), Route 240 (Three Notched Road) and Route 680 (Browns Gap Turnpike)
• A roundabout at Route 631 (Rio Road East) and John Warner Parkway
• A continuous green-T intersection at Route 631 (Rio Road East) and Belvedere Boulevard
• A roundabout at Route 20 (Scottsville Road) and Route 53 (Thomas Jefferson Parkway)

Work has been completed on a $24 million bundle of projects including a roundabout at Hillsdale and Hydraulic. A ribbon-cutting was held on November 13 for a pedestrian bridge across U.S. 29 connecting Stonefield in Albemarle County and the Seminole Square Shopping Center in Charlottesville.

Supervisor Diantha McKeel was on hand.

“[It] will make that corridor much safer for pedestrians and bicyclists,” McKeel said. “Very exciting news and I think it will foster some economic development on at least one side of that corridor.”

McKeel said there are lights on the bridge deck which make the structure feel safe at night.

The outgoing McKeel also told the Board of Supervisors that the Regional Transit Partnership created in 2017 is now defunct with a final meeting held this week. That happened at a meeting of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority. McKeel chaired the partnership from its inception.

“It’s a little sad but hard for me to believe the partnership has been in place for eight years but it takes a while to get everybody on the same page and processes working,” McKeel said.

More from the CARTA meeting in a future edition of the newsletter.

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