ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
FOR THE SECOND TIME this spring, Roanoke is tackling the 10th Street controversy by bringing area residents and planners together to find common ground on how to handle a growing traffic problem.
Carolyn Dungee represents a whole lot of people on 10th Street Northwest.
She lives there, takes evening walks there, drives a mere 10 minutes to work. She's been a Bostonian and a Californian, but Dungee prefers her hometown of Roanoke to any bigger city.
Tuesday night, she and 100 other Roanokers who live on or own property around 10th Street came at the city's invitation to the Lincoln Terrace Elementary School gym. They pleaded for a creative solution to fast traffic and pedestrian dangers along the several miles of disjointed 10th Street - part expressway to downtown and part two-lane neighborhood street.
Dungee takes to heart the city engineers' count of 8,955 cars a day passing her house, as well as their warning that the number will grow to 10,600 within the next quarter-century.
Still, she doesn't want a wholesale widening of her long street, which shoots from the Roanoke River in Old Southwest almost all the way across Northwest.
"If I had my druthers, I'd say three lanes - in places," Dungee said after the two-hour meeting. She worries about people losing their homes to street-widening.
"All the other ways should be looked at before you disrupt people's lives. I want to be treated fairly, and I want other people to be treated fairly. I know people who were taken out of Gainsboro and they were messed up for the rest of their lives."
The first in a series of public meetings was announced after black residents of 10th Street rose up against the possibility that homes may be torn down. The city administration turned to similar meetings and group discussions recently to help plan a controversial rental inspection system, which is still the subject of debate.
The city tempered 10th Street protests somewhat when it recently backed off plans to connect 10th Street to Valley View Boulevard or to a new interchange planned near Valley View Mall.
Tenth Street "improvements" have been on the books for 33 years. Nevertheless, City Manager Bob Herbert promised Tuesday night that the public meetings were beginning with a "blank slate."
"Tell us what, if anything, should be done along 10th Street from Gilmer Avenue all the way to Williamson Road," he urged the crowd.
City Public Works Director Bill Clark noted that if the city abandons long-held plans to dramatically alter 10th Street, it would be required to reimburse the Virginia Department of Transportation for large sums of money already spent on planning. Clark couldn't estimate how much has been spent by the state.
He said he hopes the work on 10th Street - whatever it is - can begin within three years. He said it would proceed in stages. The city has rejected VDOT's last proposals for widening as not "sensitive" enough to the neighborhood, he said.
Roanoke Fire Captain Nelson Reed just invested a good bit of money in the 10th Street duplex he rents out. He hopes engineers and planners build turn lanes and fix congested spots on the street "instead of talking about four-laning the whole thing."
Ora McColman, 78, of 2123 10th St., said she'd sell her house for a wider street. She's lived there since 1952. She said she'd move to Christiansburg, where she grew up.
As flipcharts filled with the concerns of 10th Street neighbors, their ideas seemed more about neighborhood safety and attractiveness than car and truck transport.
They said children, the elderly and pets can't cross the busy street. They asked for curbs, gutters, sidewalks, guardrails, storm drains, trees and landscaping.
"I have a dream of 10th Street looking like Rugby Boulevard," with lots of shade trees," Dungee said. "I guess I have a lot of my heart and soul in the neighborhood. It's just a lovely place to live."
Many residents asked for traffic lights on 10th at Hunt and Grayson avenues. The speed limit is 25 mph, but traffic routinely travels twice that speed - and faster.
Residents asked that city engineers visit their neighborhoods and that police officers responsible for their area be involved in plans for the street.
Jeanette Manns, co-chairwoman of the neighborhood group Washington Park Alliance, said she hopes the city and VDOT will reveal "what their real plan is" for 10th Street. "They're making an attempt to sit and talk to people," she said. "Let's just hope they're being honest."
Dungee said the same thing. "I feel better after coming to this meeting, and I hope my good feeling is not misplaced."
Here's what happens next on 10th Street:
* Residents' ideas from Tuesday night will be mailed within two weeks to meeting participants and anyone else who wants them.
City officials will meet again with VDOT.
* At least one other residents' meeting will be held, probably late this summer.
* The city and VDOT - perhaps with a panel of resident advisers - will come up with a 10th Street plan.
For copies of Tuesday night's ideas or other information, call the office of Roanoke Public Works Director Bill Clark at 981-2741.
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ARNE KUHLMANN Staff The Rev. Clinton Scott andby CNBJeanette Manns, co-chairs of the Washington Park Alliance, stand at
a 10th Street school bus stop with Manns' grandson, Darius Hall, who
was hit by a car there three years ago. color.