Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post



Category archives:
(all years)




Monthly archives
(all categories)


August 10, 2006 [LINK]

Staunton "beltway" is completed

Route 262 opening The final four-mile section of the long-awaited bypass loop around Staunton was opened this morning, and I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The weather was gloomy, not what you would call auspicious. Congressman Bob Goodlatte was the main speaker at the event, and Delegates Chris Saxman and Steve Landes, Staunton Mayor Lacy King, city council members Richard Bell and Bruce Elder, Augusta County supervisors Larry Howdyshell, Jim Bailey, and Nancy Sorrells, as well as various VDOT officials were there.

Looking southbound on the new section of Route 262, near the U.S. Route 250 exit. Click on this image to see Congressman Goodlatte.

The entire bypass will be designated "Route 262," which means that the northern stretch of the "Woodrow Wilson Parkway" will no longer be called "Route 275." (See VDOT.)

An obvious question arises: Is this highway project an example of wasteful "pork barrel" spending? I'm hardly one to answer that question objectively, but I can say without hesitation that there was a pressing need for a way to get around Staunton without getting stuck in the congested streets of downtown. There was simply no practical alternative route to or from the west side of town. When returning from Appomattox last March, I was amazed to see the brand-new, super-sized Route 29 bypass east of Lynchburg. By comparison, Staunton's bypass is much more modest in scale, and presumably more economical. The massive new bypass system in Blacksburg-Christiansburg? Don't get me started.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 10 Aug 2006, 1: 08 PM  .




This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

My blog practices

My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology *
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel *
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)

* part of "Macintosh & Miscellanous" until Feb. 2007

The date of each blog post refers to when the bulk of it was written, in the Eastern Time Zone. For each blog post, the time and date of the original posting (or the last update or comment thereupon) is displayed on the individual archival blog post page that appears (just before the comments section) when you click the [LINK / comments] link next to the date. Non-trivial corrections and clarifications to original blog entries are indicated by the use of [brackets] and/or strikethroughs, as appropriate so as to accurately convey both the factual truth and my original representation of it. Nobody's perfect, but I strive for continual improvement. That is also why some of the nature photos that appear on the archive pages may differ from the (inferior) ones that were originally posted.

The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.


Blog errata
(preliminary)

April 4, 2008: "Andy Ashby" should be "Andy Jones"

April 3, 2010: "Mike Morgan" should be "Nyjer Morgan"

: "" should be ""