Congestested Traffic Conditions

Did the contractors Blacksburg hired to "fix" the various intersections on Prices Fork Road and elsewhere in town get their start in home renovation? Even with the rains of this spring, these projects are taking an awful long time to reach anything that looks like completion. These guys work a few hours, then go home for the day -- they must have a contract that has no ending date and no penalty for not being done on time. Even though most of the work appears to be "done" at Toms Creek and over at Progress and Patrick Henry, there is still a mess of debris, incomplete landscaping, and just enough stuff that makes it look like the last check should be withheld. It ought to be interesting come move-in time and football season while the University City Blvd. and West Campus Drive intersections are still "nearing completion."

As to the West Campus intersection, with that street closed, why does the traffic light still need to cycle? It seems wasteful to make people sit at a red light when there are no cars coming from any other direction. Flashing yellow would seem to be the way to go, which would give the occasional car needing to leave Woodland Drive a fighting chance.

Speaking of UCB, despite all the announcements by the town and Virginia Tech about the impending closing of the right lane from just beyond West Campus up to UCB, Blacksburg's Finest were still confused about why traffic was backed up to Toms Creek Road during "rush 10 minutes" one afternoon. The dispatcher said there were calls coming in from motorists who where unhappy about having to sit in stopped traffic, but they didn't know about why there was a backup. The officers weren't sure what the problem was either, but said they would head that way to investigate. They eventually discovered that the construction that required people to merge into one lane was causing the problem. Why that was such a mystery to the dispatchers and police after all the publicity makes one wonder about the effectiveness of the internal communication of the town.

Too Fast for Conditions

Blacksburg just can't seem to get it right when it comes to speed limits and speed enforcement. One doesn't know if it is by design or general incompetence.

The town cries poor about funding for the police department and claims there isn't enough money to pay for all the positions the department needs to be at full strength. The meals and lodging tax was bumped up last year to add more police officers to the department.

OK, so the extra officers aren't always where they need to be when they should be -- at least some people feel that way. A parent purchased his own radar gun and uses it along Toms Creek Road to alert drivers that they are exceeding the 25 MPH speed limit through the school zone. This shouldn't be a problem, since the speed limit on Toms Creek Road is only 25 MPH any way. This was reported in the Roanoke Times on Friday, May 1 in the Current (see http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/blacksburg/wb/203083 ). The response from the town police department, according to the article, when asked to do something about speeding in the school zone, was to send an officer "once or twice a month to the road to patrol during school hours."

The town has no shame about this, though. The day this article appeared, the police department showed it is dedicated to keeping speed in check in critical locations around town -- NOT! At 9 p.m., one of Blacksburg's finest was running radar on Old Glade Road -- surely a dangerous piece of road if there ever was one. The car was hidden away across the road behind the Volume II Bookstore, ready to catch drivers as they roared from Prices Fork Road to Glade Road on that short section of 25 MPH street. As long as I've lived here, I don't believe I've seen or know of any accident on that street. But someone decided it was more important to put an officer running radar there on a Friday night than to run radar in an active school zone anywhere else in town more than once or twice a month.

The article also mentioned that the town will look at the possibility of installing permanent signs that will tell drivers what their speed is as they go by. If so, one hopes the town does a better job than was done on Southgate Drive. The sign for traffic traveling from Airport Road is OK (for registering cars going downhill). It is the sign for cars heading from campus that is pretty useless. In addition to registering the speed of cars coming off a short but steep downhill section of street, there is a curve in the street and overhanging tree branches that block the view of the speed until a driver is right at the sign. If this is supposed to slow down drivers (and appease the neighborhood residents, who don't like the through traffic on Southgate), it is a failure.

The town has already installed a number of three-way and four-way stops on Airport, Southgate, and Edgewood to disuade through traffic. Money was spent to put in sidewalks and traffic-calming curb work to narrow the traffic lanes on Southgate to reduce speeds. The radar speed signs are almost overkill. If the police department can't spare the officers to protect the children walking to and from school, then moving these signs to a school zone sooner instead of later would seem to be a better use of tax dollars than just to make a handful of Southgate Drive residents happy.

Traffic Conditions in Blacksburg

Getting around Blacksburg by car has gotten more difficult as the years go by. Yes, there are more cars on the streets (it seems the students all arrive in the fall with two cars each). But the town itself has added to the problem with physical changes and legal restrictions.

First, the legal. The town placed stop signs on Draper Road between Miller Street and Airport Road to control the speed of vehicles avoiding traffic on Main Street. This was despite what the bible for traffic engineers states "STOP signs should not be used for speed control." (the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD defines the standards used by road managers nationwide to install and maintain traffic control devices on all streets and highways. The MUTCD is published by the Federal Highway Administration. See http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2003r1r2/part2/part2b1.htm#section2B04).

Other stop signs have cropped up around town, most recently on Airport Road at Country Club Drive and at Southgate Drive. It would be interesting to see the engineering studies that have determined that these stop signs are needed due to high volumes of traffic and were not placed to appease neighborhood residents.

Other legal restrictions imposed by the town are the setting and posting of speed limits at artificially low numbers, especially given the street conditions. The town seems to feel that if the speed limit is set lower, then traffic will actually travel at an appropriate speed. For example, the speed limit on Patrick Henry Drive between Main Street and Toms Creek Road was 35 MPH. 
Most traffic traveled at 35-40 MPH, while others speed along at 45 MPH or higher. About a year ago, the speed limit was lowered to 25 MPH. A lot of the traffic still moves at about 35 MPH, but that makes everyone going that speed a law violator (and when the students are gone, the police are out running radar to catch those miscreants). Given that this is a wide, four-lane street designed to move traffic, it is difficult to travel at 25 MPH.

There are other streets in town where the speed limit has been dropped to control speed, even though the MUTCD states "After an engineering study has been made in accordance with established traffic engineering practices, the Speed Limit sign shall display the limit established by law, ordinance, regulation, or as adopted by the authorized agency." (see http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2003r1r2/part2/part2b1.htm#section2B13). Again, it would be interesting to see the reports done by the town after these studies.

The town has also put in place physical changes to slow or restrict traffic on town streets. Traffic islands were built at both ends (Airport and Miller) of Draper Rd. and Preston Ave. to restrict traffic entering those streets. More recently, "traffic calming" devices, curbing impinging into the lane of travel, have been added. The same type of curbing has been added to what has for years been a major thoroughfare, Southgate Drive. Because these devices narrow the street, they force drivers to slow down. While this may promote safety, it limits the amount of traffic that can travel down a street in a given amount of time.

The latest (and expensive) project is to eliminate Broce Drive as a convenient route to get between University City Blvd., Toms Creek Road, Progress Street, and points beyond. This has always been a more direct route than taking UCB with its longer distance and nasty S curves. But the people in that neighborhood (including a town council member) don't like traffic. First, speed humps were installed (same as the ones on Grissom Lane to slow through traffic), but drivers slow for them, then speed to the next one. Now, the street is being narrowed with the addition of curbs and a sidewalk, plus a roundabout at Lora Lane.

While protecting neighborhoods is laudable, the town has also been inconsistent in its actions. Despite protests from residents in the Shenandoah subdivision, the town pushed to connect Progress Street from its end in that neighborhood to its continuation in a large subdivision off Givens Lane.

The town and VDOT also put forth plans to convert that same Givens Lane from a two-lane street into a major four-lane (with sidewalks and bike lanes) throughway -- serving what? It would make more sense to take that construction money and invest it in improving and synchronizing the traffic lights and other projects (like the new turn lanes at various Prices Fork Rd. intersections) that make traffic flow better (so people don't have to use those neighborhood shortcuts). The town could also spend more time going after those who greatly exceed speed limits instead of setting artificially low speeds that sets up many drivers for a potential ticket.

And the ilk you rode in on...

Apparently if you aren't with BURG these days, you're of some "ilk" that isn't good. Grouped into this "ilk" are people who would like to see Paul Lancaster returned to Town Council. Now that this large crowd has been outed by the Roanoke Times, it will be interesting to see how BURG treats these citizens who dared to disagree with their view of utopia.

It is interesting to read the messages that were sent to Blacksburg Town Council members about filling the vacancy left by the untimely demise of Derek Myers. Those in support of Paul Lancaster talk about his interest and involvement in the community, his service on Town Council, the Planning Commission, other boards and committees, and his sense of fairness and balance. Those who want him run out of town on a rail exude lots of venom when describing how he is rude, doesn't care to listen to comments from citizens, isn't for smart growth, and is just generally disagreeable. I guess the "We Won!" post to the BURG group about the Supreme Court decision extended their carte blanc permission to force their views on everyone else.

By withdrawing his name, Paul showed class and showed concern for what would be had he been reappointed to the Town Council -- many months of contention and hard times for those council members who voted for his appointment. That isn't to say there still won't be contention and hard times if BURG doesn't get another puppet on town council -- unless, of course, the First & Main folks pack up their tent and steal away in the night, deeding the rugby field to some BURG members to keep green and pristine (or at least from being soiled by a Wal-Mart).

But since First & Main needs some additional businesses to bring in traffic, the developers will probably do what they can to put something on that site. The right thing to do would be for all interested to offer some suggestions about how best to do this, while leaving the bogus fears and histrionics out in the backyard.

Will this happen? Doubtful, given the track record of BURG and its ilk.