facts of life

background

a 1/29/20 article in the northern virginia daily discusses town park accessibility.
link: Town park accessibility a challenge for officials | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com 

Melissa Schleig has a good point. she's right when she says that there isn't a safe way for children in Madison Heights to get to and from town park by themselves. there are rte. 55 and the railroad to cross. the speed limit on rte. 55 is 35 mph in that part of town. many vehicles, including big trucks, exceed the speed limit. parking on both sides and relatively wide lanes (sufficient for vehicles to pass on the right other vehicles that are turning left) make for a long way for children to cross rte 55 by themselves. 

the good news is that there is a solution--a traffic signal at Funk Street with a separate pedestrian phase and activation buttons at the corners.

the dilemma

there seems to be a widespread feeling in town that vdot will never approve the new signal. these people seem to be "afraid" of vdot. it seems that they are unaware of the "facts of life".

facts of life

1. vdot is a public agency. vdot's purpose is to serve the citizens of virginia. no citizen should be "afraid" of vdot.
2. vdot is responsible for virginia's public roads. it's a BIG job. needless to say, safety for virginia's citizens, especially its children, is of utmost importance to vdot.
3. there will always be more projects to improve safety than there is money to fund them all.                                                        https://www.virginiadot.org/projects/syip/virginia's_transportation_funding.asp 
4. if the town wants vdot to approve their project, then the town needs to cultivate good working relationships with vdot's resident engineer, district engineer and the district's representative on the commonwealth transportation board.
5. "good working relationships" work both ways. if vdot's engineers have an unsafe and dangerous situation (e.g., the annual "yard crawl" on rte.11) rammed down their throats by town or county politicians, then building support for road improvements that the town or county may want may fall on deaf ears.
6. if the town wants a safe crossing at funk st. for its children to access town park, then the town needs to build a coalition and "push" their project. that begins with having good working relationships with vdot personnel.
7. once the town has established good working relationships with vdot, then a coalition of the town's elected officials, town staff, technical experts and citizens must convince vdot of the merit of their proposal and show their support for the project. in the case of providing safe access to and from town park for the town's children, convincing vdot of the project's merit and getting their approval shouldn't be difficult.