Route 9 Bypass Back on The Table
Hillsboro Residents Oppose Rural Road

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 10, 2007

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."

Some Hillsboro residents said they were concerned that the supervisor who heads the board's transportation and land use committee, Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run), favors the bypass. Staton did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Clem said the bypass wasn't a "burning" or "locked-in-my-brain" issue. But it is a more realistic plan to ease congestion, he said, than widening Route 9 to four lanes.

"Do I want it done? No, I don't want to see a four-lane road going across the landscape," said Clem, a member of the board's public safety and transportation committees. "But drive out there. There is no way I will live long enough to see enough money given to us to acquire all the right of way that we need to take Route 9 and widen it. And if we were to get that money, what are you going to do when you get to Hillsboro?"

Widening Route 9 in Hillsboro would destroy the town's charm, Clem said.

"Hillsboro is a beautiful little town, and you don't want to disturb it in any way," he said.

"So I've said, recognizing that we want to preserve Hillsboro at all cost, you need to probably bypass it. And if you are going to entertain an idea like that, you need to look at it now. Don't wait until the land out there gets developed."

Some Hillsboro residents, however, are resisting the notion that development is inevitable in their corner.

"A bypass would simply be a magnet for development," said Mayor Roger L. Vance, who spoke at the meeting. "Hillsboro is a great place because of the context of what it is. It's the rural countryside. It's a little village from the 18th and 19th centuries. So if we get surrounded by development, that's not a good thing."

Vance has long complained that tanker trucks rambling down Route 9 are a danger to his community; some are so wide they can barely squeeze through town. Vance has proposed a county ban on trucks running through the town, but he has been unsuccessful. He has gathered support -- and some funding -- for a plan that would discourage commuters from entering Hillsboro by building a roundabout at each end of town.

Burton urged the Hillsboro residents at the meeting to make their sentiments clear to the supervisors.

"Numbers count with them," he said. "So all I can say is, raise hell."

Clem, a former Leesburg mayor, already has weighed some of the arguments by opponents of the proposal.

Of the contention that the highway would pave over parts of the countryside, he said, "Hey, they're correct! You know, I can't argue."

Of the prediction that the bypass would increase traffic: "Well, I can't come up with an answer that would counter theirs. You know, they have a good argument."

Of the possibility that the project would make houses along the route difficult to sell, he said: "It puts [homeowners] in an awkward position. It could devalue your house."

Even so, Clem said, the bypass should be considered.

"We are just in the discussion phase," he said. "We'll have a public hearing -- probably several public hearings. And in the end result, we'll do something."

A public hearing has been scheduled for June 18.