U.S. ROUTE 29 CORRIDOR PLAN, VIRGINIA

A Blueprint for the Future

U.S. Route 29 through Virginia is a 219-mile corridor that connects multiple communities ranging from the developed suburbs of Washington DC to the rural towns and counties of Southside.  It connects some of the most historic cities like Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Danville and traverses the scenic piedmont countryside.  At the same time, it is a major transportation corridor in the State carrying considerable interstate, freight and inter-city as well as local traffic.  It is also a Highway of National Significance in the National Highway System and portions of it traverse the federally-designated “Journey through Hallowed Ground.”   Portions of the highway have become increasingly congested in recent decades and the Virginia Department of Transportation has conducted a number of studies on portions of the corridor to address the appropriate balance between the various needs and functions of this truly multi-purpose roadway.

In 2008, VDOT commissioned a team headed by Parsons Transportation that included Renaissance Planning Group, to prepare the first comprehensive study and recommendations for the entire corridor from the North Carolina line to Gainesville in Prince William County.  The role of Renaissance Planning Group was to develop and conduct the stakeholder input process that looked at alternative long-range “futures” for the corridor, as well as to develop a series of recommendations for “transportation-efficient land use.”  Renaissance created a series of prototypes for application throughout the corridor for access management, community design and context sensitive corridor planning.