The following article appeared in the Summer 2009 Piedmont View.

Piedmont roads take us through some of the country's most historic landscapes. What is their future?

Conservation Easements Along Scenic Byways in the Piedmont Region--87,000 Acres.

Saving a Gateway
When people travelling westward on Route 50 in Loudoun come over the rise just before Gilberts Corner, where the road intersects Route 15, they see the countryside open up-a luxurious green expanse that rolls to the wooded ridges of the Bull Run Mountains.

"This is point where, if you're driving on Route 50, you can breathe a sigh of relief," says Mike Kane, PEC's Conservation Officer for Loudoun County. "Now, all of the suburbs, all of the built-up areas are behind you and you're in the country. If we put up a sign here that said Gateway to the Piedmont or Gateway to the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, in a way we'd be telling people what they already know."

PEC recently saved a key parcel of land at this gateway, joining with the Mount Zion Church Preservation Association to protect 154 acres near the northeast corner of the intersection, which had been slated for 26 houses. Just across Route 50 from this land is the antebellum Mount Zion Church, site of a skirmish where 150 Union soldiers lost their lives in a run-in with Col. Mosby's cavalry. Nearby, on the other side of Route 15, lies a major Presidential estate, Oak Hill, the home of James Monroe.

In 2004, PEC provided a loan to help the Mount Zion Church Preservation Association purchase 86 acres near the intersection, where a developer had planned to build twelve houses. Later, the property that is right in the corner of the intersection was also purchased from developers by conservation-minded buyers. But a 68 acre tract in the middle still belonged to developers, who planned to dot it with fourteen new houses.

As it turned out, with the housing market down, the property went into foreclosure. PEC acted quickly to raise funds for a down payment, and purchased the land on the courthouse steps in Leesburg this May.

"Crisis brings opportunities, and in this case the economic downturn gave us one last chance to protect a vital piece of land that was nearly lost," says PEC's Director of Land Conservation, Heather Richards.

PEC plans to confer with various interested parties, including surrounding landowners, about the future of the property, which has potential as a public park that would offer nearby suburban residents a place to enjoy the countryside and would welcome visitors to the Journey through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area.

630,000 Trees
The Journey through Hallowed Ground, a corridor from Monticello to Gettysburg, was recognized by Congress as a National Heritage Area last year, honoring the fact that, as the late historian C. Vann Woodward put it, this landscape has "soaked up more of the blood, sweat and tears of American history than any other part of the country."

The heritage area includes nine Presidents' homes, the largest collection of Civil War battlefields in America, hundreds of African American and Native American historic sites, thirteen national parks and, altogether, more than 10,000 listings on the National Register of Historic Places.

PEC was a founding member of the Journey through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) Partnership, begun in 2005 to increase recognition of this wealth of historic places. Now, the JTHG Partnership (incorporated as an independent non-profit group) includes over 150 partner organizations, among them every city, town and county along the route.

As the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War begins, with the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the JTHG Partnership is proposing a plan for a dramatic living legacy-630,000 trees planted along the Journey's principal roads to represent the 630,000 American soldiers who died in the Civil War.

The species of trees and the design of plantings would vary with respect to the varying landscapes but still would convey to travelers along the roads the sense of an epic progression from Monticello to Gettysburg. "We invite everybody's ideas," says Cate Maginnis Wyatt, President of the JTHG Partnership, which is working to raise funds for the project. As they describe it, "In fifty years, during the Civil War bi-centennial this living legacy will be considered the finest example of homage in our country to those who gave 'the last full measure' to create the Union."

Calming Traffic on Route 50
Roads through the Piedmont's hallowed ground have their challenges. As developments have sprung up with little regard for transportation infrastructure, increased traffic has strained roads throughout the region.

PEC has long stood as an advocate for policies that link land use and transportation planning, a common sense approach that, in recent years, has gained traction. For example, Virginia law now requires that VDOT provide localities with traffic impact analyses for proposed rezonings. (The first analysis to result from this law, in 2007, focused on the 30,000-unit mega-developments then proposed in Loudoun. Its findings-that extreme congestion would result-energized grassroots opposition, which defeated the proposals). Among other examples are the ambitious smart growth developments planned around D.C. Metro stations.

PEC is also involved in proactive plans to improve rural roads without turning them into multi-lane highways.

In the mid-1990s, VDOT started promoting a plan to turn Route 50 into a four lane divided highway for 20 miles from Lenah in Loudoun to Paris in Fauquier, with bypasses around the villages of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville. Residents were alarmed at the prospect of a highway cutting through the countryside and radically altering rural villages. So through a citizens' organization that PEC helped to found, called the Route 50 Corridor Coalition, they expressed their own vision and designed their own plan-which is now under construction.

In a series of workshops, citizens described their vision of the Route 50 corridor as "a scenic, unique, rural community in an historical, agricultural, quiet and natural setting." They identified major concerns with the road as excessive speed, aggressive driving, hazards to pedestrians and noise. Working with a transportation engineer, the coalition devised a plan for traffic calming solutions that would improve the experience of driving on Route 50 while enhancing the places through which the road passes.

It took 15 years of work to change VDOT's course, but the Route 50 traffic calming project is now underway. Instead of massive interchanges, VDOT is currently constructing simple traffic circles at Gilberts Corner and nearby intersections. Echoing the case made by the Route 50 coalition, VDOT's website enumerates the benefits of roundabouts:

• They're safer, with a 90% reduction in fatal crashes and a 75% reduction in injury crashes.
• They reduce delay, because traffic keeps moving.
• They cut down on air pollution and fuel use, because vehicles stop and start less.
• They save taxpayers money, because there is no signal equipment to maintain.
• They're attractive, with landscaping in the center of the circle.

The Route 50 traffic calming project also includes design improvements in Upperville (completed last year) and Aldie (coming next year). Simple and pleasant design changes, such as landscaped medians, roadside trees, textured pavement, raised crosswalks and noticeable features at entrances to the towns cue drivers to slow down, relax and pay attention to their surroundings.

Roads in Thomas Jefferson's "Eden"
Some of America's most influential visionaries, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, traveled regularly through the fertile farmland along the edge of the gently rolling Southwest Mountains-a landscape that Jefferson called "the Eden of the United States."

Today the Keswick area in Albemarle County is honored as the Southwest Mountains Rural Historic District, and Route 231 through the district is recognized as a Virginia Scenic Road. Landowners have acted to permanently protect much of the land, conserving nearly 16,000 thousand acres, or 41% of the district, so far.

This landscape of stately, open farms remains much as the nation's founders knew it. But the often winding main roads through the countryside, Routes 231 and 22, carry an increasing amount of fast-moving traffic, including crowds of commuter vehicles at rush hour and heavy tractor-trailers.

Once again, state plans call for widening the roads. VTRANS 2025, Virginia's current 20-year plan for transportation indicates that nine miles of Routes 231 and 22 through Keswick should be expanded to four-lane highways with medians. The remainder of Route 231, in the northern portion of the districts, is planned for a two-lane road within wider shoulders.

PEC is in the early stages of working with the Keswick community toward an alternative vision. Tony Vanderwarker, PEC's Chair of the Board and a resident of Keswick, says "What we want is to do is involve the community in understanding how a few investments in traffic calming projects up and down 231 can have a long-term effect in safeguarding the historic character of the Southwest Mountains."

Jeff Werner, PEC's Land Use Officer for Albemarle County, points out, "If we don't plan it, then someone else is going to plan it for us. The idea is to work with the community toward a proactive vision for safe, scenic roads that convey the sense that this is a special place."

Take the Journey
The Journey through Hallowed Ground is holding its Annual Meeting July 15, 16 and 17th in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with the theme Switching the Lens: History from a New Perspective. See www.hallowedground.org for details.

Read more articles from the Summer 2009 Piedmont View