Earning/winning this grant was the result of collaborative work by the County of Albemarle, the Albemarle County School Board, 250 West group, Crozet Community Association, the Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation and a few others. Readers of RealCrozetVA know that I have long advocated for walkability and bikeability in Crozet, and practice what I preach.

(Bolding mine.)

From the press release:

Chairman Ann Mallek, School Board member Barbara Massie Mouly, and Crozet school officials and parents. The grant will fund construction of a new sidewalk north of the school connecting to neighborhoods where many students live and a crosswalk with activated flashers and a warning sign to alert approaching motorists. This project will be funded entirely by grant funds.

The project is intended to provide a pedestrian-friendly environment in the area surrounding the school, and will significantly increase the number of students who can safely walk or bike to school. Approximately 177 of 305 students live within two miles of Crozet Elementary School and there are over 200 homes in neighborhood located within one-half mile of the school that will be able to take advantage of the new pedestrian features. In addition, the private Field School located directly across the street from Crozet Elementary will also be linked by the new sidewalk to neighborhoods north of downtown Crozet and will be served by the new crosswalk and warning sign features.

“We appreciate the partnership between the County, the School Division and the Crozet Elementary School community that allowed us to successfully obtain this funding,” said Board Chair Ann Mallek in announcing the grant. “Connecting neighborhoods and schools through safe pedestrian routes helps us achieve the kind of walkable communities we envision in the County, and the use of grant funds is particularly important in the current economic climate.”

The Crozet PTO’s Walk to School program already sponsors monthly walks for children and their parents and supports the Safe Route project as a way to encourage active, healthy lifestyles among students, and the school administration is strongly committed to promoting alternative transportation for their students.

“These improvements are absolutely critical to meet our goal of encouraging more families to walk to school together,” said Crozet Elementary School Principal Karen Marcus. “Our goal is for families to feel comfortable allowing their students to walk or ride their bikes to school, and with the changes funded by this grant, we envision one-third to one-half of our student population now being able to safely walk to school.”

The highlight for me was to be introduced by the infamous Josh Davis, who all of us parents remember from the snowpocalypse of 2010.

A rough approximation of the sidewalk improvements’ location:

View Crozet, Virginia, USA in a larger map

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

From the press release:

Pedestrian safety near Crozet Elementary School will get a major boost thanks to a state grant award that will be announced on Wednesday, May 12, at 1:00 pm at Crozet Elementary School by Board of Supervisors Chairman Ann Mallek, School Board member Barbara Massie Mouly, and Crozet school officials and parents. Details of the grant and the specific improvements it will fund will be outlined at the press conference.

I’m looking forward to seeing how “near” is defined. And “major.”

Either way, walking to Crozet Elementary is a good thing. As is “walkability” for home prices.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

As far as I know, this is only for Crozet Elementary, but why not expand it to all schools in Charlottesville and Albemarle?

If you’re in Old Trail, stop by Trailside Coffee on the way to Brownsville, Henley or Western Albemarle. If you’re in Downtown Crozet, stop by the Crozet Mudhouse. Make a good time of it!

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

This Friday, September 18th is Walk to School Day at Crozet Elementary.

I talked about walking to Crozet Elementary a few weeks ago here on RealCrozetVA.

Will you be walking to school this Friday?

Related: Walk to School Day from March 2006.

Update 17 September 2009: I thought this story from RealCentralVA this was pertinent:

Being “close to stuff” matters. Certainly not for everybody, but I’d argue that, for a larger segment of the population than we’ve seen in 50+ years, the following paragraph is applicable and relevant. (Once again, bolding mine)

There are two additional conclusions suggested by the literature. One is that once the mix of nonresidential uses exceeds a certain level in an area, the disamenities effects may begin to dominate. The other is that some non-residential uses, such as retail, parks, and offices, tend to have a more favorable impact on single family values compared to apartments and industrial uses. It seems logical to expect that both the precise amount and the specific mix of uses in an area can affect property values. Moreover, each type of property may differ in how it responds to different amounts and types of other uses. For example, shops and parks and restaurants may benefit residents in homes and apartments and workers in non-residential properties, while industrial uses may always do best when located away from homes and shopping. A search for such “optimum blends” has not been conducted by researchers so far, but it is logical to expect specific uses to benefit most from proximity to a specific amount and mix of other uses.

And from my posterous blog.

Also, Walkscore’s blog discussed the theory of walkability and housing values.

Update 18 September 2009:

WCAV’s story.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Gustave Flaubert
French realist novelist (1821 – 1880)

The Daily Progress has a good article about the stalling of the Streetscape project. Please read the whole thing.

“We don’t want the charm of downtown to die away,” Trigo said. “That’s why we have to keep the businesses alive and work together.”

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors already has appropriated the money as part of its capital improvement plans, but Marshall said he and other CCAC members are worried the money will be spent on other county projects if property owners don’t get on board.

“Downtown needs this to happen and time is slipping away,” Marshall said. “This is a project that will benefit everybody, [but] the county needs to find a way to reassure [property owners] they are going to hold contractors to a schedule and stick to it.”

My question is this – if we don’t take advantage of this opportunity now, when will we? We’re not going to get a perfect plan – but we need to insist on getting this started and finished as soon as possible. What better time than the midst of a recession to prepare for the other side?

Secondly, I’m going to borrow tfjtolson’s comment from the Daily Progress in its entirety:

I want the business owners of Crozet to know that while they build it (the streetscape) we will keep coming. I want them to stay in business and I want Crozet to have the improvements.
Therefore, as a Crozet resident, I pledge to keep patronizing their stores during the construction.

Who will join me in this pledge?

Update: More at C-Ville.

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

It’s really not that far from home to Crozet Elementary, and while I wish there were sidewalks the entire way, it’s a pretty good little walk. Better yet, my small one and I stopped at Mudhouse on the way back home …

Personally, I’m grateful to live in such a walkable place.

Do you walk your kids to school?

Even better, I had my camera with me and took a few shots along the way:

** If you take pictures in or of Crozet, upload them to flickr and tag them with “crozet” – then they will be displayed in the slideshow on the homepage of RealCrozetVA.**

View Larger Map

** I’m even more grateful that my chosen career as a Realtor allows me the schedule flexibility to spend such time with my kids **

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

At the Old School House this Thursday from 7:30 pm to 9 pm. Anyone who wants to write a story for RealCrozetVA will be thanked loudly, roundly and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee from one of the three local coffee shops.

One suggestion – if we really want to and intend to invite Old Trail into Crozet, we (really the CCA) should put signs at the entrances to Old Trail as well as at the intersections of Crozet Avenue and 240 (and Jarman’s Gap Road).

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.

"A place where people can come and be"

Coming soon -  Greenhouse Coffee. It’s just to the right of the BP/Dairy Queen.

They’re hiring now and planning to be open the third week of September.

I spoke with Camille Phillips several weeks ago and asked what her inspiration was. Her response was thrilling – she wanted the challenge, wanted to take the things the loves to do – coffee, baking, serving – and bring them all together. Camille was an Air Force nurse, then a nurse in Charlottesville and now the owner/proprietor of Crozet’s newest coffee shop/cafe.

Her passion is infectious.

A very interesting comment she made was that "as many people asked for wireless as those who asked for me to not have wireless." And she may be on to something. This could be a big shift in the away from the expected coffee shop atmosphere – and perhaps a return to the "traditional" coffee shop – where people come to engage and discuss rather than work on their laptops. If she does make this decision, I think she may be on to something.

From the Wall Street Journal:

But in New York, the trend is accelerating among independents. At Cocoa Bar locations in Brooklyn and on the Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a five-month-old rule forbids laptops after 8 on Friday and Saturday nights. At Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights, Queens, owners covered three of five electric outlets six months ago after its loosely enforced laptop-use restrictions failed to encourage turnover. At two of three Café Grumpy locations — one in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood — laptops are never welcome.

Laptop backlash poses particular difficulties for people without offices, says Leah Meyerhoff, 29, a film director and free-lancer. She long has used coffee shops to interview cast and crew and to work on pre-production. Now, she says, "it’s a constant search for places with the Internet where I can sit and focus without being frowned upon."

As much as I want to develop this into a full-fledged review/introduction to Greenhouse Coffee, I thought that sharing some of my notes would help to convey a good first impression of the space/idea/concept/plan:

What’s Greenhouse Coffee going to be?

- Coffee bar, lunch, cafe homebaked goods, desserts

- Fenced in play space for kids

- The feel of Cville Coffee (she worked at Cville Coffee part-time for a year)- separate spaces for kids and adults

- Picnic tables

- Outdoor section – parties, tents

- "Gardening is one of my passions"

- Natural meet with friends, kids,

- Welcome.

- Ecologically friendly, sociologically aware.

- Energy efficient – tried to save everything

As the other Crozet coffee shops are finding, the hours of operation are expected to be a bit fluid until traffic is assessed. When we spoke, Camille was leaning towards 6:15 am to 6pm.

I know this – I’ll be stopping by as I’m walking to and from Crozet Elementary this school year.

*Editor’s note: this story is much shorter than I intended it to be; I just don’t have the time to translate all my notes into the long story I meant to write.

View Crozet, Virginia in a larger map

Copyright RealCentralVA.com, LLC. If you like this post, please, visit RealCrozetVA.comwhere this was originally posted.