Traffic Calming on Boroughbridge
City contractors are beginning work on a traffic calming project on Boroughbridge Road at the corner with Bassett Avenue. The project will consist of a landscaped raised circle in the middle of the street, to slow the traffic that uses Boroughbridge as a cut-through from Midlothian Turnpike to Jahnke Road. The project is overseen by the Department of Public Works
Traffic Engineering Department. (Image and story submitted by David H.)
Classic. I’ve complained to the city, Council and the police for 5 years about people using Clarence Street as a high-speed alternative to Forest Hill. The police said they couldn’t help aside from an occasional patrol car, Traffic Engineering basically told me “too bad” and a certain Council member’s office *cough* never responded at all.
I wonder whose palms got greased for this one?
I find it annoying that you would insinuate that there was some backroom deal and “greased palms” involved here to begin these traffic calming measures. I ride through this intersection twice daily (more if I am getting supplies from the store) and live a couple blocks down on Rockland. Boroughbridge and Bassett both are used as cut thru’s between Jhanke, Midlothian, and the adjacent neighborhood to mine. Did you have some sort of concrete evidence that leads you to believe that someone worked a deal here or did you just feel the need to lob some charges around because you have complained in the past and didn’t get the results you desired? Did your complaint involve factual information or simply your perception of the traffic that passes through the area you describe? Maybe a closer examination of your methodology would reveal why no one listens to your complaints.
I didn’t know this is what they were working on at this intersection and if I had I would have requested funding for a circle, maybe those dollars that the vocal old timers around here opposed for the circle on Forest Hill (or the one on Hull in front of SSP for that matter). Either way, it is appreciated by some residents that these measures are being taken. Maybe eventually the manhole covers will be changed too to say “City of Richmond” instead of “Chesterfield County” like they do now. In the meantime, while I admit that the perception of business operations for the city has been tainted in the past, I don’t see why that accusation would be lobbed in this instance. The traffic here is excessive…no need to grease anything, people think my neighborhood is a highway, that’s dangerous for my kids, and for me on my bike. Hopefully some of that will be alleviated by this.
Well, Willis, I find a lot of things annoying too. I find it annoying that I continue to nearly get run over getting out of my car due to cars running 45MPH+ on a crowded residential street and nobody wants to do anything about it. I find it annoying that I get the finger when I slow down to park in front of my house. I find it annoying that my assessments continue to go up every year, while my quality of life goes down. I find it annoying that the level of government response I get is non-existent.
I wasn’t aware that I needed to run all of my communications through you first. Do you work for Kathy as well?
No I don’t work for Kathy (she’s not even my council person…here on the other side of the tracks we get Doug) I just happen to have a degree in political science and while I understand it is everyones’ right to have an opinion in a democracy, that dosen’t make everyone an expert. I wouldn’t go to an engineering firm and say “well they must have worked out a deal to use steel girders of X size instead of Y because that suggestion has been made and while this problem is recognized they chose not to utilize my suggestion”.
I sympathize with your issue of traffic, believe me, if you see the blog I run you’ll quickly realize I am probably considered by most to be anti-car. And as far as assessments go you are correct, it’s outragous. My house is assessed at close to 200,000k (yeah right) and when I petitioned to have it lowered they jacked it up an additional 10,000k but even if you have spent 5 years petitioning for some traffic calming on Clarence Street (which I agree clearly needs something done and is used as a cut through as well) and have presented information to support your position, it still wouldn’t be appropriate to insinuate that somehow some deal got done to make another project happen in another area without some evidence to support that. It just makes you sound at the least jaded and at the worst unstable. Get something together to propose to introduce traffic calming on your street, I know it well it’s a bad situation, then have Richard post on here that a meeting, forum, etc will be taking place. I’ll gladly support you in your efforts and show up and work with you to help make it happen. Complaining here though won’t address your(legitimate in my eyes)concerns.
I don’t know the particulars about this street or project, but I do know that my neighborhood has been asking for years for a traffic circle and a change to two way street. We need traffic calming/safety for an exit off the expressway due to school children and farmer’s market traffic, not to mention a new egress from the neighborhood. The neighborhood association has voted in favor. We have organized our own meetings with stakeholders, we have had gone to the media. Our councilperson, Marty Jewell has been unresponsive and City will not comment on the matter.
Its extremely frustrating to see other neighborhoods, ones that may or may not even want a traffic circle, get them.
http://www.oregonhill.net/2009/10/22/good-newsbad-news-on-planning-front/
http://www.oregonhill.net/2009/03/28/ukrops-10k-in-oregon-hilland-traffic-again/
http://www.oregonhill.net/2009/04/13/if-richmond-region-is-failing-clean-air-tests-then-what-does-that-mean-for-oregon-hill/
Our government is failing us.
Government Failing us? Nah…lol. Schools crumble and downtown gets a “facelift” in the performing arts center…I know how you feel about this one Scott. Anyhow, Urban planners are professionals and the master plan has been in place for some time now. I don’t question their expertise on these matters only the political will of our elected officials to implement policies that work (complete streets, more ped. and mass transit infrastructure, a couple bike lanes would be nice, two way streets as you stated like main, cary, etc) Urban areas need to market/advertise their benefits that don’t exist in the suburbs, conveinience, community, neighborhoods. Facilitating auto use only serves to enable people to live somewhere other than the city and to come barreling through our neighborhoods on weekdays while we neglect to collect tax dollars on huge swaths of space dedicated as welfare projects to commuters from the suburbs. Roads are the largest social program out there. Parking space is space that could be businesses, homes, or commercial and could be an increase to our taxable base here in the city. Oregon Hill is a great example, just look at what the down town expressway did to O Hill….
I’m going to agree with AreaMan that Clarence is horribly abused as a cut-through. I have no idea why Boroughbridge needs a traffic circle – I don’t see that much traffic there, really. Those traffic circles are a pain in the rear for anything with more than two axles (as are those sticky-outy-corners now all over Bainbridge and Midlothian).
Liecester and Clarence are far worse, and if I had a dollar for every [edit] who’s cut in front of me on Jahnke from Liecester and immediately turned left onto Faye I’d have a lot of money.
AreaMan, If you would contact Tom Flynn at city hall, he was instrumental in getting the circles for Boroughbridge.
He can answer any questions you have about the money being used for the circles and once he was given the information about the safety issues on boroughbridge he jumped in to help.
Another angle to think about this could be that while the circle may not be quite as necessary on Boroughbridge as it may be on Clarence, who was in the opposition regarding any changes on Clarence? If one vocal resident who didn’t even necessarily live in the area but perhaps passed through the area contacted someone and was as vocal about not having it as AreaMan is about additional measures than wouldn’t it be easier to maintain the status quo than to try to implement changes in the face of opposition even if there were vocal supporters? What if that opposition was the owner of the commercial strip across from Valero on Westover Hills? Would any amount of citizen support trump business interests?
Sadly, I don’t see much in the way of participation in Forest View Heights for or against anything. We have no community meetings, no organization, no neighborhood association, etc. Mrs. Alma Moore lives nearby but her neighborhood is the next one over. She has lots of contact with the community but other than her who is there? This isn’t Forest Hill or Westover Hills over here. If someone got in in their head to install the circle here who would oppose it? Even if the new circle functionally calms less traffic than in another location for instance isn’t that more traffic calmed than no circle at all? Then the council people can go back and say “see what I did” but if they tried to install one at Jhanke and Clarence for example and got opposition from everyone rangeing from commuters, ambulances from Chippenham complaining about response times, a couple neighbors, anti-tax loudmouths, etc they would only have negative publicity. This way we stay placated, their project gets completed, and some traffic gets calmed but really just by a sampling of the number of Police cars ending up in peoples front yards the argument could be made that Jhanke (and consequently the interestion at Clarence) would have been a better place to install a circle if the true goal was to calm the most traffic with the least dollars.
As I understand it, it is not an “either-or.” Boroughbridge and Bassett is a square intersection, that lends itself to this type of calming. There is no fourway on Clarence. Residents have asked in the past for speed bumps, but the city code gives Emergency Services/Fire Departments ability to veto, which they have always used. Traffic engineering is actually a science.
…which is why most of the city-council-ordained four-way stop signs throughout the city should never have been placed. Unless an elected official is also a traffic engineer, he/she really has no business plopping down “traffic calming measures” to appease constituents.
I agree with Willis, getting the agreement of the residents on Boroughbridge was probably a key factor. One dissenting voice would probably have resulted in a different outcome.
Clarence should be changed to a one way street it is to small to have people parking on both sides and then trying to drive down it.
I am happy that we are getting anything from the City right now down here on the south side. There are a lot of road projects that need funding and I am happy this one is being addressed. I lived on Leicester Road on the section between Jahnke and Forest Hill for over four years so I know the problems of all the cut-through traffic in the “hoods” south of Forest Hill Ave. Boroughbridge and Bassett has a huge amount of traffic that has no interest in the neighborhoods that the streets cut-through. The biggest problem with most of the streets, like Boroughbridge and Leicester, is they are designed poorly. They are unlike most other city streets because they were Chesterfield county streets until the annex. No side walks or curbs, they are narrow and have no center line. That is why traffic calming measures on these streets is really important. It is no only for vehicle traffic but pedestrian traffic as well. Hopefully this is the start to more traffic circles on cut-throughs around the city