WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1992

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1992

SperryvTIle's bypass

In his letter to the editor last week Scott McBride of Sperry ville raised some interesting questions about the need for and ultimate fate of a bypass around Sperryville.

Only one organization working in Virginia has a longer * memory and a greater love for construction projects than the Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation (VDOT), and that is the infamous Army Corps of Engineers. Somewhere, somehow, the concept of a Sperryville bypass has been entered into the data banks of VDOT. Wishing alone will not make it disappear.

Highway traffic counts clearly show that more and more vehicles are using Va. 231 and U.S. 522. In 1990 nearly 4,000 vehicles per day were driving past Reynolds Memorial Baptist Church in Sperryville.

Much of that traffic is commuter and truck traffic traveling north -south through the county. From VDOT’s perspective that traffic is clogging the center of Sperryville, especially the intersection at the Corner Store.

VDOT would like to carry that traffic around Sperryville. The department’s first plan for such a bypass would have cut the town in twro. It was a bad piece of work. When Supervisor Charles K. “Pete” Estes polled the residents of Sperryville, he found opinion on the bypass to be divided more or less equally for and against the proposal. As a result he asked VDOT to drop the proposal.

Sometime this decade the residents of Sperryville can expect VDOT to return with another plan for this bypass.The idea is not going to go away.

Whether or not Sperryville should be bypassed is really a separate question. Unlike Washington, which was bypassed more than 20 years ago, Sperryville already is a destination, a stopping point for tourists.

Before Washington was bypassed, that was not the case. At that time Washington was a quiet little town with a right-angle curve in the middle. The vast majority of traffic was headed for Sperryville’s apple stands and the Skyline Drive. Washington was an aggravation, someplace to get through, not a place to stop and visit.

Today Washington has more tourists who stay longer and spend more money than before the bypass was built.

That bypass lets traffic pours down U.S. 211 on the weekends, headed directly for That Sperryville Emporium and the fruit stands that line the highway on the way to the Skyline Drive. People, lots of people, already want to come to Sperryville. A bypass that carries U.S. 522 traffic around the town will not affect the westbound river of tourists. It is coming through regardless.

Like the cat that wouldn’t go away in the old folk song, Sperryville’s proposed bypass will keep coming back. Those residents of Sperryville who wish to oppose it should stay vigilant. VDOT wants to move the north bound trucks and commuters away from the center of town. They’ll be back.