Playing telephone

 

            Do kids still play telephone? You know, the game where participants sit in a circle and a message is whispered ear to ear. By the time the last person says the message out loud, it is, at best, a garbled version of the original thought.

            Information being passed around about “Project Rocky” (PR) the proposed mid-mile E-commerce facility on Ashland Road is a lot like playing telephone.

Residents of Parkside Village, at the northeast corner of the county, vigorously oppose the project contending, among other things, that tractor trailers traveling to the proposed facility will use their subdivision roads to avoid the Pouncey Tract/Ashland Road intersection. It seems very unlikely that trucks moving cargo between Tidewater ports and Ashland Road, approximately one-half mile north of the interstate, would have any reason to be on Pouncey Tract Road, or Ashland Road north of the facility. Given high fuel prices, the shortest route is preferable.

Ashland Road  industrial corridor

A  rumor, based on an old article about a distribution facility in another state, contends that hundreds of little gray trucks will be adding to traffic every day. The application specifically says that cargo delivered by tractor trailers will be sorted, repacked, and shipped out to another place for delivery by the little trucks before dawn.

Curiously, when a rezoning application for M-2 industrial general, the same as PR, for property that abuts Parkside Village was before the supervisors last August, Parkside Village folk had little reaction. That parcel too, could include a distribution center by right, which means that all the landowner needs to do is secure a building permit. They also did not weigh in on a conditional use permit application to increase hours for an asphalt plant closer to their homes than PR.

The specter of traffic on Ashland Road slowing EMS response times to Parkside Village, a 55+ community, overnight was included in opposition comments. Goochland Fire-Rescue is in talks to amend its mutual aid policy with Hanover County for Station 9 in Rockville. Double right and left turn lanes at the PR entrance could make it easier for emergency vehicles to get through, especially in the overnight hours.

There will be more traffic on Ashland Road. Most is projected to be between I64 and PR. County officials are talking with VDOT about the possibility of adding a second I64 bridge to Ashland Road. This would be a wonderful opportunity for the Goochland General Assembly delegation, who, regardless of redistricting, still represent the areas that elected them in 2021, to make the case that this is a good economic development project for the state and secure funding for the second bridge.

Thousands of people who currently work in Goochland are inbound commuters. The PR workers could patronize local businesses while in the county. It’s hard to see how PR would have a negative impact on them.

The tractor trailers will make deliveries and pick ups between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. They will not clog I64 ramps during rush hours. Sound walls are proposed for the truck areas to mitigate noise. Goochland dark sky lighting regulations will address light pollution concerns.

To our friends in Hanover who contend that PR is greed on the part of Goochland County and will interfere with their daily commute, did you protest the economic development in your county in the I95 corridor that enriched the Hanover County coffers? Those projects had an impact on your fellow Hanoverians who live nearby. One commenter pointed out that if PR was built across the county line, Goochlanders would still have the traffic and none of the economic benefits that PR will bring to the county.

To those who screamed about high tax bills this year, PR will pay its fair share. When added to the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, PR is estimated to lop two years off the debt schedule for every year of operation, making the dreaded ad valorem tax disappear sooner.

It would be nice if PR adopted the Greenswell Growers’ model of collaboration with Goochland Schools to help students gain real world skills in robotics.

Ashland Road, especially between I64 and the Hanover line—the Pouncey Tract intersection is in Hanover— has been designated as an industrial corridor for decades. It is unrealistic to expect that land here will remain in residential or agricultural use. All too often, Goochlanders claim that they understand growth is coming, but when a proposal is made, they oppose it. When asked what they would prefer, the answer is “I don’t know, but not that.”

This is the appropriate place for PR, which is good for Goochland. Figure out the road issues and get on with it.