The government organization that provides transportation planning services will try yet again to obtain federal funding to move forward with a pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna River between a portion of the Pantops area and the Wool Factory.
The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission has tried several times to secure funding for the project from both the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Virginia Department of Transportation but has been unsuccessful.
A deadline is looking for applications for the federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program. This would be the fourth time the TJPDC has sought funding to do preliminary engineering in the hopes of reducing the $42.5 million cost estimate.
“Each time it was submitted, it received really high remarks,” said Taylor Jenkins, the TJPDC’s director of transportation. “Every debrief meeting we’ve had, they continue to encourage us to resubmit it. They said that it’s in line with the priorities of the grant program. It just advances to that final level of higher level review and it’s just not picked.”
The concept for a pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna River to connect Pantops and the Woolen Mills has been studied for many years. Here are some early documents:
- A nine page document lists the early history of the project
- VHB memo to the Virginia Department of Transportation with two potential alignments
- A three page document with answers to questions from a November 12, 2020 virtual workshop on the project
- Two page summary of feedback from the online workshop held on November 12, 2020
In the spring of 2022, the MPO Policy Board chose an alignment for the bridge that would connect the Pantops side with the Wool Factory at the end of Broadway Street. They also voted to submit the project for funding through the VDOT’s Smart Scale process but it was not selected. At the time the cost estimate for the selected option was around $15 million.
One reason the project did not qualify is because that cost estimate escalated to $42.5 million.
On February 3, the technical committee of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization was asked to sign off on a letter of support for a fourth application.
“The preliminary engineering phase is critical to refining project design, reducing cost uncertainties, and strengthening future construction-phase grant applications,” reads the draft letter. “Completion of this phase will provide updated cost estimates and alignment analysis, thereby improving readiness for implementation funding and minimizing potential risks.”
The full MPO Policy Board will consider the letter later this month.
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