A pedestrian crossing Route 29N may seem like a fish out of water, but 10 UVA students have cooked up some intersection designs to make the trek more palatable. “Crossing eight lanes of traffic is daunting to say the least,” says Matt Dreher, one of the student designers.
 Does the future hold foot traffic on Route 29? This is one UVA student-designed crossing of Route 29N, at Berkmar Drive, meant to encourage the pedestrian. |
The students were part of a School of Architecture seminar taught by Professor William Sherman at the behest of the North Charlottesville Business Council (NCBC). They targeted three intersections between Route 250 and Rio Road, some of which don’t currently have traffic lights.
“[People] are always objecting to more lights on 29, but if they’re synchronized properly, you move right on through,” said Sherman at a June 13 press conference for the designs. The pedestrian crossings all used landscaping and a space in the median to help encourage foot traffic across the asphalt.
 UVA Professor William Sherman (right) chats with students from his School of Architecture seminar. They cooked up three designs for pedestrian crossings along Route 29N. |
But one aspect not directly addressed was cost. “This was really operating as a kind of idea-development stage rather than getting into the specifics of the cost,” Sherman said. Michael McGowan, chairman of the NCBC, said he told Sherman’s group to think in thousands of dollars—not millions.
“We tried to come up with things that could be done readily and in a short amount of time,” says Danny Kwan, who graduated in May with a master’s in urban planning.
Sherman and McGowan presented the students’ designs as a complement to Places29, the $1 million long-range “master plan” that the city and county look to review in the winter. But the NCBC isn’t exactly enthused about the split-grade intersections and other features they’ve seen from Places29 consultants. McGowan sent an open letter to the Board of Supervisors in April to share NCBC’s “disappointment” with the planning process. Among those concerns were that Places29 consultants haven’t composed detailed views of 29 pedestrian crossings.
McGowan said the next step is to see if the designs get any traction in the community. As for his view of the designs: “I think they are right on target.”
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