November 3, 2025
We’re all going to the Board of Supervisors meeting on November the 5th, right?
I read the Albemarle County BoS agendas and Charlottesville Community Engagement as often as I do because a) it’s important to be informed on what’s happening in the community and b) my clients depend on my being aware and informed about what is happening in my/our community. Take a look at the Development Project section of the VDOT transportation report — the projects in that section alone will affect almost every Albemarle County resident.
There’s a whole lot on the agenda, including:
- Miller School Extension – Private Central Sewage System and Central Water Supply.
- Proposed Abandonment and Conveyance of a Portion of Oak Street, Crozet.
- Albemarle Broadband Authority Quarterly Report.
- Board to Board, November 2025, A Monthly Report from the Albemarle County School Board to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.
Skimming through and looking at stuff on the VDOT Transportation Update that directly affects Crozet’s backyard —
Note: I’d love to see a class/questions and answers that talked about how transportation projects happen — how they’re planned, funded, prioritized, executed, and how/why things take so long to become reality.
VDOT Administered
- In Design phase
- I-64/Exit 107 Crozet Park and Ride Lot: This project will construct a park and ride lot at the corner of Patterson Mill Lane and US 250 just south of the I-64 interchange. Staff are coordinating with Crozet Connect and services to finalize the provision of services for this lot. A public hearing for this project was held in late January 2024. Construction is expected in Fall
- Eastern Ave South (US 250 across Lickinghole Creek to Cory Farms Road): This project was awarded funds through the Revenue Sharing program in 2023. It is currently on hold while the County works through the VA Public-Private Transportation Act to determine the ability to utilize this program as an opportunity to construct the proposed project.
- In Construction
- Rt 240/US 250/680 Intersection Improvements: This project will construct a roundabout at the 3-way intersection of Rt 240, Rt 250, and 680 This project has been incorporated into the Albemarle Design-Build Bundle #2. Two public hearings for this project were held in late September 2023 (at the National Guard Armory and at The Center at Belvedere), and construction has begun as of June 2025. (HSIP)
Albemarle County Administered
- In Design
- Library Avenue Extension/ Barnes Lumber Redevelopment – Right-of-way acquisition for this project is underway, and the project is expected to begin construction by Spring 2026. Facilities Planning & Construction will provide further updates in their upcoming quarterly report. (NIFI)
- In Construction
- Crozet Square – Project construction is underway, and the project is expected to be complete by early 2026. Facilities Planning & Construction will provide further updates in their upcoming quarterly report. (NIFI)
Reported Transportation Issues
- Park Ridge Road – Ongoing concerns with speeding and safety on Park Ridge Rd on Crozet have
resulted ACPD traffic enforcement efforts and continued evaluation of solutions by County staff.
Speed studies have demonstrated that speeding is an ongoing issue on the road. VDOT and
County staff have agreed that this issue meets the warrants to pursue a traffic calming plan
based on VDOT requirements. Staff have received a quote of $30,000 to perform this traffic
calming study which will include engineering evaluations and public engagement resulting in
recommendations for both physical and non-physical traffic calming improvements which will
include cost estimations for implementation. Staff are awaiting direction to move forward.
Related:
A key takeaway: wider roads are not safer.
The whole episode is excellent; I think this part is compelling when thinking about Park Ridge and Eastern Avenue.
FLORA LICHTMAN: What is the ultimate goal for traffic engineers? I mean, is it to eliminate traffic? Is it to be as efficent as possible? Is it safety?
WES MARSHALL: I mean, well, we always say that safety is our first priority, but, I mean, honestly, it’s not true. Our priorities are usually around reducing congestion or increasing capacity or increasing speed. And if you look at the way our protocols are set up, that’s what they’re leading to, is like things along those lines, or even sometimes reducing costs. Like, safety, at best, is third.
So that is part of the thing that we don’t like to admit, but that’s the way the system has been set up. So if you look around most cities, where people are actually dying or having severe injuries, those tend to be the roads that have most of our engineering science put into them.
FLORA LICHTMAN: Really?
WES MARSHALL: Yeah. It’s not the roads that were built before traffic injuries existed. Like, those ones tend to be safer today than a lot of the newer roads.
FLORA LICHTMAN: Why is that?
WES MARSHALL: Well, that’s the problem. We think a lot of the stuff we’re doing is steeped in the safety science, and it’s not. It’s really more steeped in trying to increase capacity– and not even just capacity today, like capacity 20 years into the future at some distant off-peak hour, and it’s not steeped in trying to help the safety of the people that live and work and play in those areas today.
FLORA LICHTMAN: Are we collecting the data we need to actually make road design better?
WES MARSHALL: Oh, that’s a good question, too. I mean, to some extent, yes, but not nearly enough. I mean, one of the problems I see– and it’s sort of fundamental. We all want to have a more data-driven approach to making roads safer. And when any city, any researcher like me, when you dig into the data, all the data is telling us that we have this huge human error problem. We have people speeding and people jaywalking.
And this goes back to your original question, too. When you start looking at those actual crashes and asking why, like why were those road users doing what they were doing, oftentimes, you can come to a different conclusion. Like, yes, for the sake of liability and insurance, and please, it’s useful to blame the bad actors in the system, but for engineers and transportation planners and folks like us, if you start asking why– why did this person jaywalk?
And you start looking at the situation we put them in, and you realize, well, the nearest crosswalk is like a half-mile away. And even if they go to that crosswalk, it’s not that safe of a crosswalk. And you look at the built environment between where they are and where their crosswalk is, it might be missing sidewalks or things like that, and you start to think, well, what they did in that situation was, for them, the most rational decision.
So from my perspective, it’s us who’s failed to provide a safe place to cross, and we put them in a situation where jaywalking was their best option, and then we blame them when they do so and they get killed. And it happens for almost any crash you can think of. You can start asking why, and you start getting a different perspective when you start going down that rabbit hole of the why these people did what they did.