A person crosses Chamberlayne’s six lanes to reach their bus stop. Image by the author.

On a sunny Saturday in August, a troupe of Richmond residents traversed one of the city’s deadliest roads in an effort to document its dangers in detail. The stretch of Chamberlayne Avenue that runs from Brookland Park Boulevard south to Mitchell Street may only be a little over a mile, but the journey can be harrowing due to speeding drivers and slip lanes, among other hazards.

As they walked, they saw a laundry list of problems to be addressed: a lack of curb cuts, missing crosswalks, next to no greenery or shade, walk signals too short to allow the elderly to cross, and sidewalks with mechanic shop customers’ cars parked on them.

Of course, these dangers aren’t unique to Chamberlayne Avenue. Rather, this busy Richmond corridor is another example of the fundamental challenges that we face in aiming to reduce America’s 40-year high in pedestrian fatalities.

A closed sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to cross six lanes of traffic. Image by the author.

Dangerous by design

Nationally, arterial roads like Chamberlayne Avenue make up only 15% of all roadways but 67% of pedestrian deaths. The danger is especially extreme in this corner of Richmond’s Northside, as 53% of the corridor’s population is aged 60 or over and, according to Partnership for Smarter Growth lead policy coordinator Amy Guzulaitis, 11% have a disability.

Although hundreds of new housing units have sprouted up in the area affectionately known as Chamberbrook — a portmanteau of its two main roads, Chamberlayne and Brook — public investment in the infrastructure there has not kept up.

Chamberbrook residents have always understood the risk the corridor poses to those who live, work, or shop along it. That’s according to Aisha Bullard, a long-time corridor resident and business owner who coined the name of this long neglected neighborhood.

“We’ve had a car flip over in our yard,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of crashes right in front of us, and I’ve been reporting them to the police just to keep a record of it [because] there have been so many.”

Funded by the Virginia Walkability Action Institute, the above-mentioned trek — known as a “walking audit” in the road safety world — was designed to focus the minds of city officials on upgrading the infrastructure of this fast-growing corridor. It’s a welcome boost in the effort to make Richmond’s Route 1 a safer place to walk.

“We chose Chamberlayne because there were two fatalities there recently and being close to downtown we thought it could be a good model for the region,” said Guzulaitis. “With several schools there, lots of apartments, and the planned second Pulse [bus rapid transit route] coming to the area, we’re trying to draw attention to Chamberlayne in order to change that corridor as well as the other high speed arterials across the region.”

Wearing reflective vests and hard hats, teams from PSG and Virginia Interfaith Power and Light traversed both sides of the arterial, pausing to examine spots where crashes and fatalities have occurred. A third team took the bus to better understand the struggles of those who ride Richmond’s most popular route.

“This area definitely needs a lot more investment and revitalization as well as changes to the street design,” said Guzulaitis. “People were driving at least 10 mph over the speed limit. We saw a few bike riders, but they were all on the sidewalk because no one felt safe riding in the street. “We witnessed a lot of people racing across six lanes of traffic just to cross the street.”

A broken sidewalk next to a bus stop on Chamberlayne Avenue. Image by the author.

Road diet demands

In the wake of the walking audit, advocates are calling for a road diet. They would like to see one lane in each direction dedicated to buses only, as is the case for the Pulse on Broad Street, Richmond’s second-busiest transit route. Such a change would not only signal to drivers to slow down but would also pave the way for the new north-south Pulse that’s planned for the corridor.

Another solution could be automated enforcement of speeding, which reduced dangerous driving on New York City’s roads by 30% after cameras’ installation. City officials recently signed a contract to deploy speed cameras around town, two years after the General Assembly gave Virginia localities the green light to do so.

“As a city we have the authority to have red light cameras in school and construction zones,” said 3rd District councilmember Ann-Frances Lambert who represents the area. “We are moving forward to slow down traffic by Richmond Community High School and Holten Elementary on Laburnum. Citizens must be engaged in the process and let our state delegation representatives know that we need more tools to help us combat our traffic calming concerns.”

For her part, Bullard has a number of ideas to help restore Chamberbrook’s prosperity and increase road safety.

“Murals at street intersections would help encourage people to slow down,” she said. “At Pollard Park we have tried to get that slip lane at Ladies Mile closed off to vehicular traffic for years because people go zooming down it, making it hard for people to get to the park.”

One of Chamberlayne’s biggest challenges is that the corridor feels more like a place to drive through than go to.

Bullard believes recent policy changes to allow more gentle density across Richmond could help transform Chamberbrook’s empty alleys into a destination similar to that of the Fan’s beloved pocket parks. Scuffletown Park, for example, provides a blueprint for the kind of gathering space that’s possible in Chamberbrook’s empty alleys.

“We’re happy about the progress on accessory dwelling units because the lots here are so big. We would love to have some of them [in Chamberbrook’s alleys], as well as accessory commercial units to make the alleys safer and more vibrant,” she said. “Cities with a lot more density have cafes and community in alleys and not just trash cans like we have. We’d love for our alley to be a demonstration of what is possible across the city.”

Bullard also notes the importance of historical context around Chamberbrook. As the city studies capping Interstate 95 to reconnect Jackson Ward, the devastation and displacement the highway brought to that historically Black neighborhood has become increasingly common knowledge. What few folks realize is that the rerouting of intercity traffic to the interstate also drained the prosperity of Chamberlayne Avenue, which once boasted a bounty of bustling tourist lodging.

“There used to be this rich history around tourism here that no one can imagine anymore, but I think we can bring it back,” Bullard said. “Back then there wasn’t a lot of vehicular traffic because things were built around not having cars. They say Ginter Park was Richmond’s first streetcar suburb. I’d love to bring back that history of hospitality but make it more inclusive.”

A new curb cut with no crosswalk over a slip lane along Chamberlayne. Image by the author.

Finding a fix

The recent (and long overdue) addition of crosswalks to Hull Street in Manchester could serve as a model for Chamberlayne Avenue. As more development and residents flow into the corridor, calls for more investment into safety and livability seem likely to get louder.

Although no city officials attended the PSG walking audit, Guzulaitis said members of Richmond’s Department of Public Works have planned their own road safety assessment of Chamberlayne for later this fall. With enough community support, she believes the unsafe infrastructure can be changed and lives can be saved.

“We want to see actual changes happen and for city officials to get involved here,” Guzulaitis said.

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Tagged: bicycling, budget, chameberlayne avenue, equity, government, grtc, pedestrians, politics, public safety, richmond, roads, transit, virginia

Wyatt Gordon is the senior policy manager for land use and transportation at the Virginia Conservation Network, and an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Urban Planning. He's a born-and-raised Richmonder with a master's in Urban Planning from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a bachelor's in International Political Economy from American University.