Category Archives: Cherry Street
Stop Sign Proposal Revealed
This past summer there was a lot of discussion about Oregon Hill’s traffic flow. The Idlewood roundabout is still coming, and more construction near Monroe Park added fuel to the fire, but the real sparks have been several highly visible accidents at key intersections in the neighborhood. A few neighbors have had their corner properties hit multiple times by vehicles over the years. Thankfully, somehow, there has not been any related fatalities.
The Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association originally, as of a few years ago, voted and asked for a few additional stop signs at these key intersections, namely Spring and Laurel, and Spring and Pine, in order to create what are essentially all way stops. City traffic engineers have rejected them (though other neighborhoods have been able to prevail in their requests). At one point engineers came back with a small roundabout proposal, but neighbors voted that down, in part because of concerns about parking impacts.
Over the last 6 to 8 months, the conversation changed, along with the construction scene, and more elaborate proposals have been brought forward for overall traffic flow and with what is called ‘basketweaving‘.
Jokes aside, the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association did seriously consider options and ultimately came up its own ‘custom’ proposal.
While nothing has been decided or implemented yet, here it is:
The red circles are where existing stop signs would be changed so that they are ‘flipped’, directing traffic to stop in the opposite directions from the current situations. For example, currently, if you are going north on Pine Street on the 500 block, you do not have to stop, but people approaching on Spring Street do have to stop. In the new scenario, if you were going north on Pine Street on the 500 block, you would stop at the intersection with Spring, and people going west or east on Spring would not have to stop.
Fire On 300 Block of S. Cherry Last Night
According to a neighbor, there a fire at a house on the 300 block of S. Cherry last night. About 20 firefighters responded to it. The house is vacant and was undergoing renovations, and the firefighters said there was not a lot of damage.
Recent Crimes
From CommunityCrimeMap.com:
DRUNKENNESS
1XX S BELVIDERE ST
Jul 29, 2017 at 8:22 pm
Data provided by Virginia Commonwealth University Police Department
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT
3XX S CHERRY ST
Jul 29, 2017 at 5:00 pm
Data provided by Richmond Police Department
DUI, ALCOHOL
1XX S BELVIDERE ST
Jul 31, 2017 at 1:31 am
Data provided by Virginia Commonwealth University Police Department
Portion of Cherry Street Closed Wednesday
From Richmond Police Department:
For August 2-
00 Blk. N. Cherry Street between W. Main St. & Floyd Ave will be CLOSED. The hours of closure will be from 6 AM to 6 PM. VCU has requested this closure.
Hit and Run On S. Cherry
From CommunityCrimeMap.com:
HIT AND RUN
4XX S CHERRY ST
Jul 8, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Data provided by Richmond Police Department
Yard Sales
Stormy Night Problems
Neighbors reported various problems last night in the midst of stormy weather-
At 11pm Monday nite, at two Intersections, Traffic Lights completely dark. Corner of Belvedere & Idlewood Ave. and corner of S. Laurel St. & Idlewood Ave. Reported to SeeClickFix.
2:15am Power outage here 500 block S. Pine St.
Report all outages (888) 667-3000Chimney fire on 600 block of S. Pine. Thank you RFD for a quick response.
Power out on part of 400 block Laurel.
Also, sometime between 8-10pm, there was an apparent hit and run on 1000 block of Idlewood. Looks like someone coming off expressway too fast hit two parked cars, knocking them into each other and up onto the sidewalk.
Option 1 or Option 2 or…
So one thing that happened at the last Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association meeting (2/28) was a presentation on possibilities for new stop signs at intersections for neighborhood traffic.
This sort of thing has been requested multiple times before in regard to speeding and dangerous collisions, but for different reasons has never been acted on.
At the meeting, a City traffic engineer presented two options for stops. The proposed options are for a flipping of the stop signs at the circled intersections to give the east-west streets right of way and have the north-south streets stop. This way, no one direction always has right of way, and would need to stop at roughly every other intersection. This traffic pattern is called basket weaving, and has been used successfully in Maymont. These options are in no way set in stone, and are up for discussion and suggested alternatives. ‘Option 1’ suggests new stop signs at the intersections of Albemarle and S. Laurel, Spring and S. Pine, China and S. Laurel, and Holly and S. Pine. ‘Option 2’ suggests new stop signs at Albemarle and S. Cherry, Albemarle and S. Pine, Spring and S. Laurel, China and S. Pine, and Holly and S. Laurel.
Neighbors are asked to let the neighborhood association know which option they think is best as well as any other input. The plan is to discuss this more at the next OHNA meeting and then get back to the City traffic engineer and Councilperson Agelasto’s office with some thoughts and decisions.
Cherry Street Rose
Courtesy of Pine Street neighbor Cristina DomÃnguez RamÃrez.