JPA Bridge Construction Cutting into Business, Still on Schedule - NBC29 WVIR Charlottesville, VA...

in NY or LA traffic they would figure out how to replace the bridge while still allowing traffic thru and it would be closed 1 day at most. they'd also work 24/7 and be done in 2 weeks with a podunk bridge like this.

Another shining example of the City hard at work to protect the middle class. If that bridge were the main artery to the downtown mall or Barracks Road, they would have found a way to do it in a week.

Build a low income housing for homeless people - 2 months.

Build a over priced, over budget, under used, not needed transit center designed by a mayor's cronies - under six months even with excavating geothermal wells.

Replace a bridge that contributes to the well being of five small businesses that have been landmarks in the community for decades... hoo cares.

City Council should be jumping through hoops to find solutions to this problem, if you fail Bobby and those other businesses you should all be drawn and quartered.

Hoos Middle Class wrote:

Another shining example of the City hard at work to protect the middle class. If that bridge were the main artery to the downtown mall or Barracks Road, they would have found a way to do it in a week.
Build a low income housing for homeless people - 2 months.
Build a over priced, over budget, under used, not needed transit center designed by a mayor's cronies - under six months even with excavating geothermal wells.
Replace a bridge that contributes to the well being of five small businesses that have been landmarks in the community for decades... hoo cares.
City Council should be jumping through hoops to find solutions to this problem, if you fail Bobby and those other businesses you should all be drawn and quartered.

Sorry, but Hoo Brew is going out of business because it is terrible. The bridge is an excuse. Well before the bridge started, business was sparse. It is a hole in he wall that manages to ruin the Shenandoah Joe that they serve. Take one step inside before commenting and you will agree.

That said, I too fail to comprehend how this has taken so long to complete. There are many days that there are too few people on site to even bother counting. Progress has been steady lately - hopefully they will wrap it up earlier than scheduled.

There are at least a couple dozen businesses around the JPA/Fontaine/Maury intersection that are all affected by the bridge construction. Yet this is the third time NBC29 has focused on Hoo's Brews and Bishop's Barber shop. What's up?

UVA75 wrote:

There are at least a couple dozen businesses around the JPA/Fontaine/Maury intersection that are all affected by the bridge construction. Yet this is the third time NBC29 has focused on Hoo's Brews and Bishop's Barber shop. What's up?

Free advertising as usual.

internets wrote:

in NY or LA traffic they would figure out how to replace the bridge while still allowing traffic thru and it would be closed 1 day at most. they'd also work 24/7 and be done in 2 weeks with a podunk bridge like this.

The sad thing is contractors also drag their butts when doing repairs. If an actual VDOT crew had done the repairs it probably would have been done by now. Just look how well the contractors did in clearing the snow these past few winters. Half the time they wouldn't even put their plows all the way down to the pavement so half an inch of snow was left on the roads. They didn't want to lower the plows all the way because if they don't scrape the roads they don't have to replace the lower half of the plow every few years.

UVA75 wrote:

There are at least a couple dozen businesses around the JPA/Fontaine/Maury intersection that are all affected by the bridge construction. Yet this is the third time NBC29 has focused on Hoo's Brews and Bishop's Barber shop. What's up?

I thought in December it was published that those two businesses would be going out of business... interesting how they are still here and still whining.

Patriot wrote:

<quoted text>
Sorry, but Hoo Brew is going out of business because it is terrible. The bridge is an excuse. Well before the bridge started, business was sparse. It is **** in he wall that manages to ruin the Shenandoah Joe that they serve. Take one step inside before commenting and you will agree.
That said, I too fail to comprehend how this has taken so long to complete. There are many days that there are too few people on site to even bother counting. Progress has been steady lately - hopefully they will wrap it up earlier than scheduled.

Not to mention she can be pretty hatefule.

Too bad VDOT didn't design the project to put a temporary bridge alongside the J_Park ave bridge, so people could still get where they want to go, and emergency vehicles could respond without delays.

The slowness of the bridge replacement is only part of the problem. Other parts include the city not anticipating how all the traffic that used to pass over that bridge would be forced onto 2 alternative roads that can't handle the volume and that have in no way been improved to accomodate it: Shamrock and Stribling. Until the bridge is fixed, drivers have to choose between either lining up to cross the tracks on Shamrock (accompanied by new prohibitions on right turns on red lights at Shamrock/JPA and Shamrock/Cherry, which only made flow worse) or barrelling down the dirt road at Stribling to go underneath the tracks and then figuring out how to make the desired turn onto Fontaine. For a lark, take a visiting out-of-towner on that Stribling run at rush hour, and then make a left on Fontaine and see how tightly they are clutching the dashboard at that point. The irony is that there was a bunch of time to anticipate all this, since it took them 4 years longer to get started on the demo work than had been first planned.

FreelanceEMT wrote:

<quoted text>
The sad thing is contractors also drag their butts when doing repairs. If an actual VDOT crew had done the repairs it probably would have been done by now. Just look how well the contractors did in clearing the snow these past few winters. Half the time they wouldn't even put their plows all the way down to the pavement so half an inch of snow was left on the roads. They didn't want to lower the plows all the way because if they don't scrape the roads they don't have to replace the lower half of the plow every few years.

AND they have to come back and plow it again, racking up more hours to be reimbursed for.$$$$$

buyerbeware wrote:

<quoted text>AND they have to come back and plow it again, racking up more hours to be reimbursed for.$$$$$

In a sad way the contractors really have if all figured out.