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VDOT kills controversial Buckland Bypass proposal
Easy come, easy go.
During an Oct. 1 meeting in Warrenton, a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) consultant unveiled a series of recommended improvements to U.S. 29, including a bypass around the village of Buckland near Fauquier’s border with Prince William.
Local officials and residents greeted the bypass proposal, which would link U.S. 15 and U.S. 29 at New Baltimore, with immediate and intense opposition.
A four-lane bypass would fail to relieve area congestion on the busy highway, destroy largely pristine land, interfere with future conservation efforts and be contrary to Fauquier’s comprehensive plan preservation and transportation goals, they argued.
Within two weeks of the Warrenton meeting, Virginia transportation officials, including Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) members Peter Schwartz of Fauquier and John “Butch” Davies III of Culpeper, removed the bypass recommendation from the study.
Conducted by Parsons Transportation Group of Washington D.C., the study covers 219 miles of U.S. 29, from the North Carolina line to Gainesville.
The proposed bypass would have straddled the Fauquier-Prince William line along the west side of U.S. 29.
Fauquier board of supervisors Chairman Holder Trumbo welcomed VDOT’s decision to drop the proposal.
But Trumbo cautioned: “I’m not too excited, one way or another” because the idea reappears and disappears periodically. “This dog, regardless of it hunts, is coming back. My advice to (Buckland Bypass opponents) is never sleep. Keep your eyes open 24 hours a day.”
Davies and Schwartz met with VDOT officials and Springer on Oct. 14 in Richmond during which they discussed the U.S. 29 corridor study and agreed the Buckland Bypass proposal should be scrapped.
Later that day state Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer and VDOT Commissioner David S. Ekern arrived at the same conclusion.
Speaking of the consensus about how to improve the area’s congestion problems, Davies said: “We need to stick to existing corridors (U.S. 29 and 15), rather than raising these other road alternatives. And, frankly, the money just isn’t there in 20 to 30 years” to build a Buckland Bypass. “What we want is something that is doable and that local governments want.”
Fauquier’s board has opposed a Buckland Bypass prior to the Oct. 1 recommendation.
Davies knew that but didn’t necessarily object to its inclusion in the study because he “had thought it was something that at least should be looked at.”
Springer said he and his colleagues suspected a Buckland Bypass would elicit strong objections.
“We had discussed it before" the Oct. 1 meeting “that it would likely get this level of response.”
But the study included a bypass recommendation because “we felt the responsibility to put it out there and get feedback,” Springer said.
Alternatives to a bypass to ease U.S. 29 traffic flow could include ways to avoid additional signals, better land-use and transportation planning, more van pools and extension of Virginia Railway Express to the Gainesville area, he said.
The CTB will review and act on the U.S. 29 corridor study. Springer said his firm hopes the transportation board will approve the study in December.
Todd Benson of the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), which strongly opposed the Buckland Bypass concept, said he will keep close tabs on the study.
“We’re going to remain vigilant,” fearing a Buckland Bypass proposal “could reappear between now and the end of the year. “If it can appear and disappear it can return.”
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