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Feet Don’t Come First in Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg, Virginia, is trying to do better by pedestrians. In the past few years, it has opened the Heritage Trail along the Rappahannock River and extended the Virginia Central Trail, with new traffic lights to help pedestrians cross Jefferson Davis Highway and the Blue and Gray Parkway. Pedestrians are supposed to finally get traffic signals to help them cross Lafayette Boulevard at the train station.

The improvements to walking conditions in Fredericksburg are welcome and long overdue. The traffic lights by the train station have been a problem for many years. I wrote about them in my Commuter Crossroads column 15 years ago, and the problem has existed much longer than that.

The Fredericksburg police have begun a public awareness campaign called Feet First to encourage drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks and to encourage pedestrians to cross the streets carefully and safely.

However, the city needs to do something else: give the sidewalks back to pedestrians. I often encounter sidewalks blocked by parked motor vehicles. If drivers need more room to park, they need to buy land for that purpose and pay taxes on it, not steal the sidewalks. As long as people have to walk in the street because the sidewalks are used for parking, feet will not come first in Fredericksburg.

Forbes Street	Princess Anne Street
Charles Street	Frederick Street
Wolfe Street	Amelia Street

Call the cops! That guy took a picture of my car on the sidewalk!

I’ve seen the sidewalk on Charles Street opposite the community center blocked by motor vehicles on more than 240 occasions. (I recorded the dates and license plate numbers.)

A resident of Charles Street stopped me outside the Weis supermarket and said he had called the cops because I took a picture of his car and had paused outside his house numerous times (more than 240, actually). He said I would be hearing from the Fredericksburg Police. (As I noted in my article on adult bullies, bullies often try to use the law to intimidate anyone who challenges them.) To my surprise, I did hear from the police. They thanked me for telling them what this man had said and done. The cars still block the sidewalk almost daily, though.