To the Editor:
Thanks for the information regarding the Dave Brat town hall meeting at the Fire Station. I do not understand why the Patriots set this up, since Chester residents do not get to vote for Brat, being within Randy Forbes’ fourth Congressional district. But thanks for the information.
Thanks also for sharing your reasonable concerns regarding the safety of the new bike lane through Chester. I feel as if we are being offered the opportunity to claim that strip of roadway for bikes by throwing our bodies in front of cars. No thank you, Chesterfield government; I value my life too much for that. Doing something “on the cheap” can turn a good idea into a bad one.
Chris Wiegard
1 Comment
It doesn’t sound like Chris is a road cyclist. Or if he is it’s only on his neighborhood street. I ride over 1000 miles a year road cycling. While a Chester resident for many years, I rode on the side of Rte. 10 through the Chester village area often sharing the road with hundreds of cars and very large, heavy trucks. There was no bike lanes for any of these rides. That was my inspiration for going to Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle in early 2011 with the idea of promoting pedestrian and bike safety in Chester. Around that same time I joined the Chester Community Association (CCA). I presented the same idea to the CCA. I was told the CCA had previously requested these things but there had been no outcome. The positive and enthusiastic response from Mrs. Jaeckle had me thinking the outcome could be different this time around. It was. A process began in which, with Mrs. Jaeckle’s involvement, meetings occurred with officials with the Chesterfield Department of Transportation (CDOT). This led to a CDOT request of the CCA to present another letter detailing the need for improved pedestrian crossings on Rte.. 10 in Chester, bike lanes on Rte 10 in Chester, extending the existing sidewalk on Osborne Rd and Old Centralia Rd. This letter was delivered to CDOT in 2011. What followed next was a Citizen’s Committee put together by Mrs. Jaeckle to review the pedestrian safety needs in the Chester Village. This committee, of which I was a member, included representatives of businesses located in the village, as well as nearby residents. It met a number of times with VDOT and CDOT officials to review and discuss the available options. As a member of the CCA, I reported back to that group with updates on the status of this project. This project took time. What also added to the time was getting into the VDOT queue for grant funding to help pay for certain aspects of the project. Eventually our turn came and our project began to take shape. Along the way, the folks at CDOT were helpful and accessible, as was Mrs. Jaeckle. The first result was the sidewalk extension on Osborne Rd. The Old Centralia sidewalk extension is still waiting on a right-of-way. The pedestrian crossings are almost complete. The bike lanes are stripped which also gives an added safety barrier to the sidewalks.. The bike lanes currently stripped almost didn’t happen due to VDOT. Arguably they could’ve been more. However the bike lanes are more that what we had before when I used to ride my bike on Rte. 10 through Chester. The recommendations referenced by the editor, Mark Fausz, were not in the 2011 CCA letter sent to CDOT. It was this letter that was acted upon by CDOT for the pedestrian and bike safety improvements not the letters Mr. Fausz referenced. So those recommendations, along with his opinion of the final outcome of this project are irrelevant as well as unfactual. By the way, there are asphalt crosswalks at Chester and Harrowgate Roads now! I guess Mr. Fausz doesn’t see those as he drives over them several times a day every day! My biggest disappointment with Mr. Fausz is that he, as a member of the CCA Board of Directors, and one who attended, most, if not all, CCA meetings in which the process of getting the pedestrian and bike safety improvements was fully discussed multiple times, including what configuration the bike lanes would ultimately be, would use his editorial space in the VN to criticize the outcome of this worthy project while completely ignoring the lengthy and thorough citizen-input process that got the project done. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when I heard him say more than once in some of those past CCA meetings that having any bike lanes would be preferable to not having any bike lanes. I wonder if that renders his current published opinion on the bike lanes as inconsistent or just plain hypocritical? Either way Mr. Fausz has deliberately misinformed and disinformed the public with his dishonest opinion on the bike lanes and how they came to be. Shame on you Mr. Fausz! Perhaps it’s time you finally rendered some decent public service to the community by retiring your editorial pen since your word can’t obviously be trusted. .