CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — Jon Capps lives at Harbour East Village off of Route 10 in Chester. He’s putting together a petition to get a traffic light at the intersection of his neighborhood and a reduced speed limit, saying the amount of cars on the road at any time makes it extremely difficult and dangerous to get onto Route 10.
“That would definitely help the traffic situation in the county on this corridor,” Capps said. “It’s an imminent danger no matter what time, day, noon, or night.”
Capps is not alone, and residents are hoping for a solution sooner rather than later.
“A couple of years could also cost a couple of lives,” said Jennifer Crotts.
Crotts is the property manager at Harbour East and had an accident at a neaby intersection years ago when she was pregnant with her son. She says she was traveling down Route 10 when a car just pulled out in front of her.
“They just decided to go for it and ran me off into the trees, in the median,” Crotts said.
In the past three years the number of crashes between Old Stage Road and Rivers Bend Road off Route 10 have decreased, but already this year there have been 35 crashes. That doesn’t include a crash we saw Thursday.
“We have lots of school buses that come in and we almost fill those school buses and we’re putting our children at tremendous risk,” Crotts added.
“It could be my grandson that comes to visit, it could be the next door neighbor,” said Capps.
8News checked with VDOT to see if they’ve ever looked at this intersection and whether it warrants a traffic light.
“While we do not have any recent studies specifically for this location, our traffic engineering team plans to conduct traffic signal and speed studies within the next 45 days,” said a VDOT spokesperson.
VDOT says anyone that has questions or concerns about a road hazard can report it to their customer service center at (800) FOR-ROAD (367-7623) or online. The center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
