Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 3 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
Bypass 231
To the Editor: ,
We thought they were lying, but we’ve been proven wrong. “There is no plan for a Sperryville Bypass.” That was the word from Bob Moore, VDOT Resident Engineer, only a few years back, when many of us were engaged in a losing battle to prevent the “four-laning of U.S. 211” (the “Highway to Nowhere”) between the towns of Washington and Sperryville.
What is proposed, folks, is a “Connector,” not a “Bypass.” Feel any better? No? I don’t either.
A “Route 522 Connector” is now contemplated, and we who used the inevitability of a “Sperryville Bypass” unsuccessfully in an attempt to convince Sperryville business people to oppose the four-lane project must accept full responsibility for this latest threat to the county. Because you know the idea had never, until then, occurred to the VDOT engineers. '
Nor had it ever occurred to VDOT, until I naively suggested it at the public highway meeting in Culpeper, that such a bypass (“connector”) would be an additional incentive to southbound truckers from routes 17 and 522 to use the F.T. Valley Road (231) as a shortcut to Route 29 and- Charlottesville.
My thinking, at the time, was that no one would want the F.T. Valley Road, which was shortly thereafter designated a “Virginia Scenic Byway,” to become a major trucking artery.
Even without the bypass (let’s call it what it would be), there is too much truck traffic on 231. Although my house is a mile and three quarters east of that road, and separated from it by Schoolhouse and Juba mountains, the roar of heavy vehicles on an otherwise quiet night is reminiscent of the sound of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which is about the same distance from my
95.8%