News & Features
Chester Group Concerned About Major Road Design
By Mark Fausz
Jul 2, 2008 - 2:51:52 PM

Chester Connections’ vision for the North/South Pkwy. that will run through Chester to access Branner Station. The Linear Park trail is shown reconfigured at right; a roundabout is near top.

“Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history,” says Jeffrey Rubin, CIBC World Markets, an investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Does his assessment play into the construction of a new road through Chester that would access the Branner Station development off Branders Bridge Rd.? That’s what a committee of the Chester Community Association (CCA) wants to know. The committee called Chester Connections (www.chesterconnections.org) is more interested in knowing how a Rt. 10-like road will impact the village of Chester as it cuts the area into quadrants without safe crossings. Is a major highway with a high-speed design needed in Chester?

“It’s still an unknown, and that’s the problem,” says committee member Rosalie Owens. “We have been getting very little information from Chesterfield on how the road will be designed.”

At least one member of Chester Connection has been involved in meetings with Chesterfield’s transportation department. He says VDOT is working from old policy and wants to build the road with 12-foot lanes and design it for high speeds without pedestrian safety as a priority.

The committee is promoting a design that would reduce the width of the road’s lanes to 10 feet, which would force a lower design speed and could lower the speed limit to 30 mph. Roundabouts in lieu of intersections would also slow the traffic and provide safer crossings for pedestrians. The smaller footprint would also allow space to maintain the Linear Park trail, which could be used by walkers and bicyclists.

Local trail enthusiasts have been working with a national organization, East Coast Greenway, to include the trail as part of its route.

HH Hunt, the Branner Station developer, will be including a trail through its 1,600-acre development and wants to include it in the design of the north/south parkway that they are committed to building and paying for.

Initial plans for the north/south parkway, which runs from the development approximately at Branders Bridge and Old Happy Hill roads and follows north along the old Seaboard Coast Airline rail line to Chester Rd. and onto Rt. 288, are due to be reviewed by the Chesterfield Department of Transportation (CDOT) and then introduced at an open house in early August. According to Bermuda District Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle, there will be one public meeting on the plan following the open house review.

“We’re waiting to get some clarity from CDOT and Ms. Jaeckle on how to handle the public process,” says Travis Gardner, vice president at HH Hunt, in charge of the Branner Station project. “We’re looking forward to meeting with our engineers, CDOT, and VDOT and then getting a public meeting set.”

Gardner says the north/south parkway is a bit ahead of the east/west freeway that will access the development on its south end, and that the road’s right-of-way impact on property owners will be shown on the plan.

Jaeckle says she agrees in concept with the group. “We don’t want this new road to be another Rt. 10. I think if we had it to do over again, we would have done Rt. 10 differently and safer for pedestrians.”

One property owner whose property backs up to the old rail right-of-way said at last week’s CCA meeting that survey stakes are visible in his backyard, although no one has contacted him as to what that means.

Owens says that the committee is concerned that by the time the public sees the engineer’s design, the road plan will be too far along to make substantial changes. “There really has not been a whole lot of communication with citizens since this process was started. Citizens should be included and their opinion respected.”

The Chester Connections group is collecting signatures on a petition asking for a road design that is community/pedestrian/trail-friendly, safe, and will not further divide the Chester community. The committee will also meet again this week on July 2 at the Chesterfield Center for the Arts office to determine strategies and discuss options. Visit www.chesterconnections.org for more information on their efforts or to sign the petition.

mfausz@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421


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