A proposal to construct a bridge across the Rivanna River to connect Pantops and the Woolen Mills has lost out in its second attempt at funding. “We did not get the RAISE grant for preliminary engineering for the Rivanna River pedestrian bridge,” said Commissioner Rory Stolzenberg at the July 11 Planning Commission meeting. RAISE stands…
The City of Charlottesville this week is adding new technology to more than two dozen pedestrian signals to make it safer for those with visual impairments to cross the road. The city is installing an app called Polara that delivers this service, “With this new system, a person approaching an intersection can open the app…
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors has endorsed a plan to convert a roadway along the Rivanna River into a car-free zone called for in the Pantops Master Plan. “Free Bridge Lane is a low-volume, unstriped local street that extends for approximately for half a mile from Darden-Towe Park at the northern end to U.S. 250…
The first meeting of the year for the Pantops Community Advisory Committee comes with a first look at a new concept for how Free Bridge Lane along the Rivanna River could be reconfigured in the near future between Darden Towe Park and U.S. 250. This is called for in the Pantops Master Plan adopted by the Board…
The current administration of the City of Charlottesville has inherited a city government that has struggled to turn ideas for road and multimodal improvement into completed projects. For instance, the Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded three Smart Scale grants to the city in 2016, but none of them has yet gone to construction. The city saved…
The Virginia Land Conservation Foundation has awarded nearly $15 million in grants across the Commonwealth to help preserve land from development. That includes $175,000 for Charlottesville to purchase 8.6 acres of land in Albemarle County along Moores Creek. That falls under the “Open Spaces and Parks” category of the program. The money can be used to purchase…
Council grants air rights to UVA for Emmet Street pedestrian bridge The chair of the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee told the Charlottesville last week Planning Commission about a major planning initiative that is about to get underway. “We are just beginning the planning for the 2050 long-range transportation plan which is the high level plan…
The Virginia Department of Transportation has followed through on a plan to help the city of Charlottesville get better about actually building projects for which it has been funded. On Tuesday, officials briefed the Commonwealth Transportation Board on the cancellation of three projects for which the city received funding from the Smart Scale process in…
The city of Charlottesville has begun moving ahead with changes to the city’s Downtown Mall, which will turn 50 in the year 2026. Last week, the Board of Architectural Review weighed in on one change intended to make parts of it a little safer. “This is a request from the city of Charlottesville to install…
The effort to link the Blue Ridge Tunnel in Afton to Charlottesville with a continuous shared-use path has received a major boost from the federal government. A $2 million grant authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be awarded to Albemarle County for the Three Notched Trail Shared Use Path Plan. “A ‘shared use’ path is typically…