Route 9 Bypass Back on The Table

Hillsboro Residents Oppose Rural Road

Longtime Hillsboro farm owner Dot Shetterly shook her head slowly as she considered the proposed four-lane highway that would slice through a chunk of the western Loudoun County countryside.

"This is just another rape of the land in Loudoun," Shetterly, 68, said after a public meeting on the proposal at the County Government Center in Leesburg last week. "I am on the farm that I grew up on. And my farm is right where the road would be built!"

Shetterly, who runs a bed-and-breakfast at her Silverbrook Farm on Woodgrove Road, was among dozens of western Loudoun residents who squeezed into a conference room to voice opposition to the proposed Hillsboro Bypass, which would link busy Route 9 with even busier Route 7. One called the proposal an "atrocity." Another said it was a "monstrosity."

But some Loudoun officials say the bypass should at least be considered because it would ease congestion on Route 9, which runs through historic Hillsboro (population: 100, give or take) and is a major artery for commuters heading to and from West Virginia. The highway would begin west of Hillsboro and end west of Purcellville.

"You know, if people desire to leave Route 9 the way it is and not have a bypass, so be it. It doesn't bother me at all," Supervisor Jim Clem (R-Leesburg) said in an interview. "But I do believe wise people should at least sit down and look at this."

The bypass was first proposed -- and rejected -- in the early 1990s. The idea resurfaced after Loudoun hired an international engineering firm, Michael Baker Corp., to make recommendations on how the county's transportation plan should be revised.

In a presentation at Monday's meeting, Lorna Parkins, a Michael Baker consultant, offered grim numbers, projecting that by 2030, traffic would be "poor" for nine hours every day in Hillsboro, where Route 9 is the two-lane main drag.

"We've been asked to look out to 2030 and answer the question: 'What are the long-term needs in the county?' " Parkins said. "It's just important to know that this is the first step in the planning process. . . . . We're not recommending a bypass so much as we're recommending that you look at a bypass.

"What we are saying is there are severe transportation problems in the Route 9 corridor."

Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge), the only member of the board to attend the meeting, voiced strong opposition to the bypass.

"It will destroy that part of the county," Burton said after the meeting. "I will remind you what happened with I-270 [in Maryland]. Within five years after it was built, everything on both sides of that road was developed. When you build new roads, you induce more traffic."

Much of the bypass traffic would originate in West Virginia, Burton said, adding, "I don't see why we have to spend a lot of money and destroy our countryside to satisfy West Virginians."