Group sues to stop Meadowcreek Parkway
by Hawes Spencer
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Just four days after highly visible earth-moving and tree-felling began on a section of the road once billed as the salvation of downtown, a group has filed two motions in Charlottesville Circuit Court trying to stop the construction of the Meadowcreek Parkway. On February 24, an attorney representing the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park, CPMP, filed a lawsuit and a request for an injunction.
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VDOT and some on city council have participated in breaking state,federal law. Doing so is inexcusable. The people in this group are correct to cry foul. I hear there are some smart cookies watching the situation. The powers that be better listen too, or more fireworks will fly. The will of too many people is being ignored.
Whiny little group of tree huggers who want to thwart the democratic process. Every new road is evil, every bike rider a karmic diety. Saving a park that almost no one uses instead of letting the majority of local taxpayers have a road that has been needed for 30 years. The road is coming, get out of the way or become part of the asphalt
ha ha fizz fizz, So you think it is alright to break the law? Some of the dummies in the city neglected to do all of their homework, and then they broke the law. Get real, at least the GOLF COURSE has prevented the city from damaging the park in installing more ugly crappola. I’m sure the coalition would be open to promoting more citizen usage of the park. Many believe the golf course should be turned into a natural area to be enjoyed by more people. Who is thwarting the democratic purpose? It seems to be those democrats on city council who have violated the state law! The road isn’t needed by the city. The adjacent COUNTY that is out of touch with reality, and has poorly planned, needs the road.
Fizz Fizz, CPMP has the right to have a competent court of jurisdiction determine what’s been done, what is currently being done, and what shall be done next. Get out of the way, or get trampled by the CPMP members as they enter the courthouse. :)
poo poo, I think the residents who live on Park Street would disagree whether the city needs the road or not. I don’t even know how some of them get in or out of their driveways nowadays.
Hey Whiney the Poo…
The COUNTY is already paying 1/8 of the city’s budget, so maybe we should stop that. I’ll gladly knock 10 cents off my tax rate and let you keep your “pastoral sand green golf course.” This isn’t Torrey Pines we’re talking about here…
Funny how the county needs the road, but it gets people from the county to jobs in the city and people from the city to jobs out in the county…
Sick, I hear what you say, but in the longterm, I don’t think Park St. will garner a positive result in the building of the Parkway. The county needs a route “around” and they are not assuming responsibility in channeling their own traffic. The city needs to call the county on this asap.
The city also needs to SLOW DOWN the traffic on Park St. The silly costly slabs placed all along the street don’t work. Vehicles swerve and scare pedestrians everyday. In fact, I’m surprised someone hasn’t died, YET.
BS, Yep your county is paying the city because your county signed on the dotted line, so who is whining now!!!!!!
Just build the damn road. What a crock - the plaintiff isn’t requesting monetary damages, but IS looking for attorney’s fees. Stevie Wonder can see what’s behind this.
But I’m confused. What’s an “junction?”
[...] provides a sense of the basis for the group’s opposition. Those more legally-inclined can see the text of the lawsuit and the request for an injunction courtesy of Hawes Spencer at The [...]
County signed on the dotted line to buy the city’s annexation rights. Since the city doesn’t have any such rights to sell anymore, the city has broken the agreement and the county sure looks stupid to keep buying something that doesn’t exist. The politicians don’t care because they’re spending other people’s money. The grass roots have to elect new people to stop paying for nothing so the city can take the county to court and explain how any contract to buy X remains valid when X does not exist. The city is being greedy, no big surprise, but county looks foolish and cowardly.
The county signed and gave up rights when it signed…so they are the dumb ones in doing so. The city is “laughing all the way to to bank”. Now the county is coming back begging, and we’re all laughing.
I love how parkway opponents always hold out a bikeway as the alternative, yet never mention that some version of Warner’s 250-McIntire interchange is required to have a bikeway! Crossing 250 at grade is dangerous, and the traffic light pattern that is there now would never support a crossroad of any type.
If there’s a reasonable alternative, I haven’t been able to think of it, and all I hear from the people who are trying so hard to stop the parkway and interchange as far as productive alternatives is crickets.
Also, yeah, everyone’s in favor of public transit, but none of our local green types are in favor of easing the Emmet St. bottleneck that all rush-hour buses to the north currently have to go through. (Buses could use 250 and Hydraulic, but I’m sure you’ve seen that at rush hour as well.)
I’m a big fan of bikes and public transit… and I don’t see any alternative to serving alternative transporation in the Charlottesville urbanized area other than building the damn parkway. At least none that is politically feasible, with city and county and state getting the funding lined up to make it happen.
For some of us this is about the value of parkland, that once destroyed is gone forever. There will never be agreement and certainly the developers that own land along the parkway want the road built. But I believe the greater good is to preserve McIntire as parkland and the reality is to accomplish that we need to elect people who support that.
“What are the choices that we must make if we are now to succeed, and not to fail ? …In a democracy, the simplest and cheapest action is to vote. Some elections, contested by candidates .. are settled by ridiculously small numbers of votes.” pg 556
“Collapse” by Jared Diamond (How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed)
“The other crucial choice illuminated by the past involves the courage to make painful decisions about values. Which of the values that formerly served a society well can continue to be maintained under new changed circumstances ?” pg 523
Simply put, the Pantops area is a disgrace and rather unappealing to drive through. 29 North is even worse. And now we are poised to turn the bypass into another eye sore, and delete a beautiful park with old growth trees. And BTW Fizz Fizz, many people use the park. Maybe you should step away from your computer and go check it out yourself. Shame on Charlottesville and those who are planning its growth and demise. Doesn’t anyone see that there is a history of poor planning overall in this city. For a city that has the best architecture school in the country, it is shameful to see that the city harbors some rather poor conservation efforts from preserving older buildings, to saving green spaces, and solving traffic flow problems. Shame on you Fizz Fizz and your short-sighted ways.
You people who think that this road won’t happen are the same ones telling republicans to accept the fact that we now have a socialist president.. and to get over it..
so get over it..
They can play games all day long but at the end of the day, year or decade this raod will go through..
If you tree huggers had not been so shortsided you would have taken all of the money you have spent fighting the inevitable and BOUGHT parkland…
That would have made the worls a better place.
It must suck to be you.
“…those who are planning its growth and demise…”
Growth has occurred and continues to occur. Planning is what has NOT occurred. The people are here and more are coming. Many ideas for solutions are discussed. NOTHING is EVER done except obstruction of one approach by proponents of another.
Gosh people, think about the dogs! I travel Melbourn Road several times a day. I see people parking every day to enter the trial and woods so as to let their dogs use it as a public bathroom! Where will the dogs go now? :)
I could be wrong but I thought whatever park is destroyed by the new parkway will be replaced elsewhere. Is this correct? If so, the new road is definitely worth it as it will ease some congestion around 250, Hydraulic, Emmet, etc. People seem to be trying to plan but all this ridiculous grandstanding keeps slowing things up.
Hawes and other bloggers:
Did anyone notice that the “Coalition” identifies itself in the style of the case on the first page of these motions as “Coalition to Preserve Meadowcreek Park” but the name of the coalition appears as “Coalition to Preserve Meadowcreek ParkWAY” on the last page (just above where their Counsel signed the pleading)? This irony about their identity was not lost on me and probably not on others also.
And yes, out of professional courtesy to a fellow member of the bar, I telephoned my friend Ms. McKeever, Counsel for the Coalition, before making this public entry here. She had not noticed it the discrepancy, even though she signed the Motion as Counsel for the Coalition to Preserve the Parkway within inches of the name. She laughed when I pointed it out and said, “all these things can be fixed, you know.”
I’m no tree hugger, but development generally makes quality of life worse. Cville has made some stupid decisions in my opinion, starting with 29N, then the destruction of Pantops (with a shopping center on top of it no less), now a road through McIntire Park.
I used to be a planning commissioner and one thing I learned was that development isn’t per se bad or good –it’s finding the balance of development to available resources. In general for most planning commissioners that I’ve known and city planners established parks are sacrosanct when it comes to roads and development
…Ead, If ever a project needed obstruction, this it it!
Don’t worry, though. There’s is not one parkway opponent
within sight who gives a damn about this corrupt venture.
They’ll play nice and conventional, documenting their efforts, civility at all cost. They’re out of here.