One person was taken away by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad after this approximately 8:25am wreck today west of town on Ivy Road in front of the Volvo dealership. Three eastbound vehicles were involved, with a black Honda Pilot getting sandwiched between a bronze Honda Odyssey in front and a dark blue Ford F-250 pickup behind.

Moments after the accident, as toward-town commuter traffic slowed, a second collision, this one involving just two cars, occurred a few hundred yards west of the first. Albemarle Police officer Hutchinson (seen in photo) said he was too busy to immediately answer questions.

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Following an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 2006, Gail “For Rail” Parker is once again running to represent Virginia in the world’s most deliberative body. The 62-year-old retired Air Force officer will run under the banner of the Independent Green Party and will offer a platform of installing a light rail train system to solve the Commonwealth’s transportation woes. Parker announced today that she has the requisite 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot, which she will present to the State Board of Elections today.

Her ‘06 campaign gained national attention, and not only for the fact that she may have swayed the unprecedentedly close election to Jim Webb with her last minute endorsement. No, Parker’s legacy is greater than that; her radio ads featured (more)

 

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Three separate locations of last night’s shootings on I-64 were confirmed this morning in a press briefing: the Ivy exit at mile marker 114, the route 690 overpass (Greenwood Station Road), and the Virgina Department of Transportation (VDOT) maintenance shop in Yancey Mills.

Virginia State Police Superintendent Colonel W. Steven Flaherty said that while police are still awaiting ballistics testing, it “appears that the same type of gun was used in all three locations.” Based on witness accounts, Flaherty said that more than one suspect was involved. Although multiple shooters are suspected, Flaherty said he is not sure if multiple guns were involved or if (more)

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6:50am: The Miller School has now closed for the day.

6:30am update: All lanes on I-64 have reportedly reopened.

6:22am update: Albemarle schools and the Miller School are reportedly on a two-hour delay because of the Afton situation.

5:38am update– It’s a shooting! Four vehicles were hit by gunfire, according to an online story in the News Virginian in Waynesboro. Two people were injured, but their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening, according to the newspaper.***

I-64 slammed shut to W’boro (original 5:31am headline)

Traffic is backed up for miles this morning as both directions of Interstate 64 have been closed all the way from Charlottesville to Waynesboro.

Highway spokesperson Lou Hatter concedes in a release that authorities don’t know how long the road— shut from Exit 96 in Augusta County to Exit 118 in Albemarle County due to “police activity”— will remain closed.

Hatter says motorists are advised to avoid the area and expect “significant delays” on Route 250 and other nearby highways. Real-time updates can be obtained at www.511Virginia.org.

Hatter’s release didn’t say whether the closure was related to the forest fires currently burning in Augusta County and throwing copious volumes of smoke into the Western reaches of Albemarle.

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Pedestrian Kevin Cox was shaken by what he saw early March 13 at the City Hall Annex on East Market Street. A man, “obviously drunk,” says Cox, waved at a bus to stop, and when it didn’t, lurched into the side of the bus, and fell into the street “with his head in the path of the right rear tire.” The bus stopped, according to Cox, and then took off once he had pulled the man out of the way.

“I think that driver would have done serious harm if I hadn’t pulled him out of the way,” says Cox. He wants to know whether it’s Charlottesville Transit System’s policy to drive off when someone is waving to get on a bus.

Actually, it sort of is. Says city spokesman Ric Barrick, “It’s a judgment call by the driver, if he can do it safely.” And because of safety concerns, it’s CTS policy not to let someone on the bus if intoxicated, and both Cox and the Charlottesville police incident report agree the man was drunk. (more)

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NBC29 says 7,000 Central Virginia households lost power this afternoon. This pine tree, which fell from the property of the Fry’s Spring Beach Club, fell through utility lines— including electric wires— to close a lower stretch of Jefferson Park Avenue.

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After decades of debates, petitions, public and not-so-public meetings, the Meadowcreek Parkway is finally becoming a reality. A crew is making way for the much fought-over connector by cutting down trees and moving utility poles on Rio Road– the first actual, physical work ever done to bring to fruition plans for the road that will run from the intersection of McIntire Road and 250 to Rio Road near Dunlora and CATEC.

“Right now we’re completing utility relocations, making the final land acquisitions, and advertising for bids for the project, and we expect to break ground in spring 2009,” says VDOT spokesperson Lou Hatter.

In all, the project will cost $68.5 million in city, county, state, and federal funding, with the most expensive component being the new interchange at 250 and McIntire. Sen. John Warner (R) secured a $29.5 million federal earmark for that in 2005.

If all construction moves according to schedule, motorists could be driving on the new road as early as spring 2012.

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Last night, City Councilors expressed shock that the Florida-based consultant hired to to study the so-called Eastern Connector, a road proposed to link Pantops with Route 29, had recommended chopping right through the city instead of some hoped-for alignments through Albemarle County terrain.

“There’s been a little bump in the road,” Mayor Dave Norris told fellow Councilors as he revealed that the half-million-dollar study (half paid by the City) produded a report last week whose alternatives all run through the City.

“If you look at the numbers,” City planning chief Jim Tolbert told Council, “the Eastern Connector probably could have a place as the most important road that could be built to relieve traffic in Charlottesville, but there’s nowhere to put it. The County has allowed development to occur (more)

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In one month, Charlottesville Transit Service passengers can look forward to electronically equipped kiosks to let riders track bus locations and arrivals in real time. Unfortunately, the new “bus finder” system wasn’t unveiled in time to help a handful of students left waiting outside in a cold rain for a bus that never came.

Devin Benson, a 17-year-old Murray High student, took the last bus to Piedmont Virginia Community College February 12 for his practices-of-criminal-investigations class– and wound up with no class and no return.

Benson arrived around 5:20pm. Because of bad weather, the college canceled its evening classes at 5:25, says Benson, and he waited with three or four other students at the bus shelter.

“I waited at least an hour,” he says. “Someone else with a cellphone called and was told the bus was canceled. Ice started forming on the back of my backpack.”

When the students heard the bus was canceled, “We tried to go back (more)

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More frequent service, better on-time performance, and free rides for Wahoos. The head of Charlottesville Transit Service says these are three factors that led CTS to a ridership spike of 11.5 percent from this time last year and to log its one-millionth passenger of the fiscal year with five months to go.

“I feel encouraged,” says CTS transit manager Bill Watterson. “We’re demonstrating that we can make ourselves work better.”

At our request, Watterson provided the Hook with route-by-route ridership figures that show that 69 percent of the rides occur on just two of CTS’s 18 routes: the Free Trolley, which connects UVA and downtown, and the #7 bus, which links downtown to Fashion Square Mall, passing such hotspots as the Corner, Barracks Road, and K-Mart/Seminole Square.

“Those two routes,” explains Watterson (no relation to the famous cartoonist), “provide (more)

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Charlottesville’s #1 passenger rail promoter was hoping that Amtrak would take the idea of a daily train to Washington and roll with it. But Amtrak went further than Meredith Richards was expecting. The quasi-public passenger rail company released a report Tuesday signaling its desire to add a new daily train that would roll not just to Washington but all the way to New York. And back.

“I’m just thrilled,” says Richards, who heads the cvillerail.org advocacy group. “Amtrak said we’re the easiest corridor to add service to and at the lowest cost and in the shortest time, and they said, ‘Go for it.’”

The proposed train– whose southern terminus would be an hour south of Charlottesville in Lynchburg– would increase the number of passenger trains stopping in Charlottesville by about 70 percent. According to the suggested schedule, travelers could (more)

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