Heather Goodwin of Arrington urged the Nelson County Board of Supervisors on a continuation meeting to withdraw a 2020 SMART SCALE grant of $5,200,000 that the county obtained for safety improvements at the Oak Ridge Road and U.S. 29 intersection.

Goodwin told the board that, in her experience, the intersection has not produced fatalities and that it was not one of the county's known high-fatality locations. "In 2020, this board filed for and got a grant of $5,200,000 for improvements on the intersection of Oak Ridge Road and 29," she said. "This is not one of the intersections where people are getting killed in our county."

She described the proposed project as including several hundred feet of turn-lane expansion north from the Tyro (Tyre) River School driveway and a slight lateral shift of Oak Ridge Road to accommodate right-of-way. Goodwin said the engineering work already performed is roughly $300,000 and asked the board to explore whether VDOT would waive the county's engineering cost so the county could withdraw the SMART SCALE application and reallocate funds to intersections with demonstrated safety problems. "I would much rather, as a citizen of Nelson County and the Commonwealth of Virginia, have that money go someplace where somebody's actually being harmed," she said.

Planning and county staff were not recorded taking action on the request during the meeting. Goodwin said she discussed the project at a recent safety meeting with VDOT and the sheriff's office and was told VDOT could recommend waiving the county's engineering expense, but she did not provide a VDOT representative's name at the meeting. The board did not act on the request during public comment.

Goodwin also noted that several special events temporarily close the road in the project area and that event promoters bear the traffic-control costs. She said that, based on her observations, the driveway at Tyre River School rarely sees more than a few turning vehicles at a time in an average year.

No board motion, vote, or staff direction on the SMART SCALE grant was recorded in the meeting audio during public comment; the item remained a citizen request at the time the board moved on to the next agenda item.