Charlottesville Bypass (VA)
Legal History
In January 1998, SELC, on behalf of the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Sierra Club, filed suit in federal district court for the Western District of Virginia challenging the proposed Route 29 bypass of Charlottesville. The defendants include the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and various officials of these agencies, as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia's Secretary of Transportation. The lawsuit is rooted in the defendants' unilateral decision in 1995 to construct the bypass - despite their own studies showing that the road would do little to relieve traffic congestion on Route 29, the declared purpose of the project - and the defendants' failure to consider adequately the adverse impacts of the bypass and alternatives to the road project.
The "sequencing" agreement
In 1993, the state and federal governments approved a three-phased plan to relieve traffic congestion on U.S. 29 in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The sequencing plan included widening a section of Route 29, constructing three interchanges at heavily congested intersections along Route 29, and, in the third phase, building a western bypass, but only if the other two phases did not solve the traffic problems.
The state and federal agencies completed a federally required environmental impact statement (EIS) in 1993 analyzing the three-phased sequencing project, and approved the project in a federally required record of decision. The local governments and the University of Virginia all formally agreed to this arrangement.
In 1995, however, the Commonwealth Transportation Board unilaterally scrapped the second phase of the sequencing agreement (the interchanges), and decided instead to proceed with the bypass. They made this decision without any prior technical study or recommendation and without notice to the public or to local officials.
A "Road to Ruin"
The Board's unilateral decision was also completely at odds with its own $3.7 million dollar study that showed that the bypass, in the absence of the interchanges, would do little to solve traffic congestion on U.S. Route 29. According to VDOT's own studies, the vast majority of traffic on the existing highway is local traffic - people going to the stores and malls located along U.S. 29, which the bypass will do little or nothing to address. In fact, VDOT's studies show that the interchanges are the key to remedying local traffic conditions. Moreover, because substantial additional development has already occurred north of where the bypass would rejoin U.S. 29, the bypass is already obsolete and would provide minimal benefit to through traffic.
This highway project, which is now estimated to cost over $240 million or nearly $40 million per mile, is a perfect example of the wasteful and unnecessary projects that are proliferating in much of the South. All too often, these road projects generate few benefits, and in fact lead to more traffic, higher taxes, worse pollution and a deterioration in the quality of life and sense of community. For several years' running, a study by Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth ranked the Charlottesville bypass among the worst projects in the United States.
The proposed bypass was also featured in a 1998 report by the Virginia General Assembly's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission as an example of the failings of Virginia's road location planning process. The report criticized VDOT's unilateral decision to scrap the interchanges and to change completely the traffic need addressed without a public hearing or completion of a technical analysis.
SELC and partners challenge the bypass proposal
Our lawsuit challenged the decision to rescind the sequencing agreement and to forge ahead instead with the bypass. The lawsuit also challenged the original 1993 EIS on the grounds that it failed thoroughly to analyze the negative impacts of the bypass, including the serious threats to the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, the drinking water supply for more than 80,000 people.
In the fall of 1998, the federal government conceded one of our claims that the school recreational facilities are protected property, and required VDOT to review the issue and undertake the necessary studies.
On August 21, 2001, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia issued a ruling in SELC's lawsuit finding that VDOT and the Federal Highway Administration violated federal law by not adequately considering the impacts of the bypass on the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir and on archaeological and cultural resources. The court ordered VDOT to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement on the impacts to the reservoir. Although the study was completed, the ruling in effect stopped VDOT from moving forward with this ill-advised project so far.
