Dear City Council,

In my 40 years in Charlottesville, I have not seen a project as foolish and inevitably damaging as that of the Meadowcreek Parkway, which will not solve our traffic problem; the scheme will only aggravate it. (I write as somebody who is not so very near to the site of this horror.)

If the freeway is built, we will have a road ripping the city into 2 parts on the north and south axis. We will have speeding cars. Who are we kidding when we talk about a speed limit of 35 miles an hour? Cars will be roaring thru at 45 miles an hour. We will suffer a loss of park land and do damage to nearby neighborhoods--the very features of the city that make Charlottesville the beautiful place it has been over the years. Not to mention that the design is aesthetically an abomination. It is totally out of scale with its environment. It is equivalent to putting a factory on the downtown mall. I have seen nothing like this ill founded idea since the city thought of turning University Avenue between Emmett Street and main street into a boulevard circa 1970. Fortunately, the city came to its senses and did not widen that street and split the university in two.

The city council should realize that it is going to bring devastation to the city with this parkway, and if it is built all the members on council, past and present, will have this disgrace as their legacy. It is utterly unbelievable that such a horror has been promoted by a council made up of members from the democratic party (of which I am otherwise a proud member). I have heard all of the arguments in favor of the road. None of them is convincing. The project is a monstrosity of urban planning.

Is this blight to be your legacy? That the Meadowcreek project cannot be stopped at this late date is of course utter nonsense. Please come to your senses before you leave a permanent scar upon this fair, but fragile city.

Yours regretfully,

Paul Barolsky