CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Charlottesville City Council unanimously selected a cheaper shared-use path over a more costly sidewalk and two bike lane proposal for a VDOT Avon Street Streetscape project, but after a spirited debate about on-street parking. The half-mile VDOT Smart Scale project at the county line removes 33 on-street parking spaces, which was of concern for Councilors Lloyd Snook and Brian Pinkston, even though they voted to approve the project alternative.

Alternative A of the project VDOT offered was building sidewalks along the western side of the street and have single bike lanes in each direction. Alternative B, that Council approved, is just building a shared use path along the east side of the road. The third option was a “no build”, which was not really an option since the project was selected to move forward in 2023 and the city believes in the ultimate multimodal construct. VDOT recommended Alternative B because Alternative A exceeded the $15.8-million budget.

While Snook said he was going to support that Alternative B, he lamented, “Effectively the only choice we’re given is do we do the version we can’t afford or do the version we can afford. I think the only thing we can do is take the version we can afford, hope that somehow or another we’ll through other means figure out ways to mitigate the problems the residents at the bottom of the hill are going to have (losing on-street parking), or other than that just say ‘sorry, folks’.”

The residences in the corridor do have a single off-street parking space on their properties but will have to find something else to do with vehicles losing the on-street parking.

Councilor Natalie Oschrin said there are proposals to add pedestrian paths to other streets to look into, but she asserted street parking is not a guarantee. “It’s public city space, and even if its convenient to park in front of a house where you live, it’s not something the city guarantees you.”

Snook responded, “But it is an expectation people rely on when they buy their houses. Let’s not lose sight of the fact they have property rights that are going to be adversely affected by the consequences of this.”

“It’s public space”, Oschrin said, “You look at some of the highest value city and neighborhoods in America, and those home values do not suffer for lack of parking.”

“All that’s fine, but it does hurt… just admit that”, said Councilor Pinkston.

“As I admitted, there’s potentially a sticky moment, but then we get through that”, Oshrin replied.

Pinkston said while he has the parking concerns, this project was conceived and approved a while ago and he’s not going to stand in the way of it at this late time.

The city also agrees to assume ownership of the bridge over Moore’s Creek as a pedestrian bridge, which is so the bridge can operate under city standards and not under VDOT standards which would require vehicular traffic allowed on it.

Click here for the agenda materials.