Four years after turning down millions in state funding to reconfigure one of Charlottesville’s most urban intersections, the city will try again with a version that would restrict the flow of traffic on three blocks of Water Street.
“Converting Water Street to a one-way simplifies the signal timing at the West Main and Ridge [streets] intersection, improving the peak period capacity of one of the busiest bottlenecks in town,” said Ben Chambers, the city’s transportation planning manager.
In June 2022, City Council terminated its previous attempt, the West Main Streetscape project, to address this intersection. The Virginia Department of Transportation has now been working with Charlottesville on a new design where West Main Street meets Water Street, and Ridge Street meets McIntire Street. Under current conditions, vehicles can also turn east onto South Street.
The plan faces a late-summer deadline for funding through VDOT’s Smart Scale process, a primary mechanism for how localities pay for large transportation projects.
After years of VDOT rejecting plans it deemed deficient, city staff are recommending an alternative that no longer would allow vehicles heading east to travel directly onto Water Street. Instead they would turn onto South Street, which runs for three blocks before ending at the Water Street parking garage.
The plan would reserve the westbound lane of those three blocks of Water Street for cyclists only. It would extend a two-way bike lane across Ridge/McIntire onto West Main to Fourth Street SW. The plan would also eliminate the slip road leading to southbound Ridge Street, and move the plaza where the Lewis, Clark, and Sacajawea statue once stood to the north.
Council will have to approve the project in August, after which VDOT would rank it along with dozens of others from across the Commonwealth.
Under the new plan, pedestrians would be given more time to walk across each of the intersections. Chambers said there are other benefits as well: “This capacity improvement also creates additional space on Water Street for a protected bicycle facility, providing safer mobility options and a more inviting entrance to downtown.”
Council killed another project on Ridge Street in late 2024 to get back in VDOT’s good graces after being found deficient in actually building anything. For instance, Charlottesville won three Smart Scale awards in 2016, but did not put any of them out to bid until January 30, 2026. That project, the East High Streetscape, will extend some of the wider sidewalks and bike lanes that came with completion of the Belmont Bridge.
VDOT is taking public comments on the alternative through February 5 by emailing sandy.shackelford@vdot.virginia.gov.
