Meadowcreek Pkwy Interchange Meeting

The City of Charlottesville’s

250 Interchange Steering Committee

held their fourth meeting yesterday [

meeting materials

]. This committee is planning the interchange for Route 250, the Meadowcreek Parkway, and McIntire Road.

The committee reviewed the themes of the public comments received at the

March 23, 2006 citizen information meeting

and in the period shortly thereafter. The committee received the following draft purpose and needs statement for the interchange project:

Purpose of the Project

The purpose of this project is to improve traffic operations at the baseline Route 250 Bypass/McIntire Road intersection (which includes McIntire Road Extended); and safely accommodate future traffic demand; improve community mobility, including bicycles and pedestrians while minimizing impacts to the environment and supporting existing and future recreational development in McIntire Park.

Need for the Project

There are four specific needs to be addressed by this project: 1) traffic congestion and limited capacity at the intersection; 2) inefficient traffic flow and operations through the intersection; 3) unsafe motorist, bicycle, and pedestrian intersection conditions; and 4) deficiencies in community mobility for automobiles, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

The committee also received for consideration from RK&K Engineers thirteen design alternatives for the project (which includes a no-build option). Described as a starting point for future discussions, only committee members Kevin Lynch (City Councilor) and Robert Hodous (Chamber of Commerce) voiced their initial opinions of the design alternatives (images below). They agreed that option C1 was a viable approach to be brought forward for public consideration. Councilor Lynch also expressed support for seeing options D2 and E2 assessed further.

No formal decisions on design preferences were made by the committee. Information on all the designs is available on the

project website

. The next committee meeting is Monday, May 22, 2006.

Option C1–Diamond with Single Roundabout

[click image to enlarge]