Creating pedestrian & cyclist access to Garst Mill Park

Loads of families live within easy walking distance of Roanoke County's beautiful Garst Mill Park but they never walk or bike there. The reason? A lack of simple and inexpensive pedestrian and cyclist accommodations make it dangerous to do so.

Image 1: Families that live very near Garst Mill Park but
cannot safely walk there. (Click on image to enlarge)

If you know of anyone that could potentially help implement small changes to enable foot and bike access to Garst Mill Park please share this posting with them. Thank you!

For hundreds of families to walk or bike to Garst Mill Park they just need to be able to safely cross Garst Mill Rd and walk or bike 0.1m along Halevan Rd.

That's it! 

This seems simple enough, but the following factors make this 0.1 mile journey dangerously unsafe, especially for slower moving people (children and the elderly):

1. Blind Turn: There's a blind turn right before the place where pedestrians cross Garst Mill Rd to Halevan Rd.
2. No Pedestrian Crossing: The pedestrian crossing point has no road markings and no signs to alert motorists that they're approaching a pedestrian crossing point.
3. Speed Limit Too High: The speed limit is 35mph, which means motor vehicles are commonly travelling at 40mph+ around the blind turn and through the pedestrian crossing point.
4. Heavy Traffic: Since Garst Mill Rd is heavily used by motor vehicles, the dangers posed by all of the above factors are amplified.
5. Halevan Rd is not pedestrian / cyclist friendly: Halevan Rd is narrow and there's a ditch along the roadside.

Click here http://db.tt/B7f7mngv to view an illustration of the current situation, using my family as an example, and literally hundreds of families are in the same situation. 

The great news is that all of these factors can be easily and inexpensively addressed, opening up foot and bike access to Garst Mill Park to hundreds of Roanoke County residents, taxpayers and voters.

Here's how: 

• Install a pedestrian crossing + 
• Reduce the speed limit near the crossing area + 
• Create a simple grass walking path alongside Halevan Rd.

Click on the image below to see what these changes would look like. Full size image: http://db.tt/a5JXHPMK

And additionally, while Fleetwood Ave is the best available bike / walk route to Garst Mill Park for all of the families in this area, Fleetwood is not particularly bike / PED friendly.

Fleetwood is narrow with no shoulders, and often motorists are either a) not expecting to see cyclists / pedestrians and therefore not adjusting their driving enough to overtake them safely, or b) motorists are driving in excess of the speed limit.

Sharrows provide a fantastic and effective visual notice to motorists that a road is "shared use" with cyclists and pedestrians. For the safety of the community, it would be ideal if sharrows could be added along Fleetwood:
Click on the image below to view a larger version. Full size image: http://db.tt/etkrf5ls

Road Sharrow Example: 

Sign Sharrow Example:

All of these changes are very inexpensive to implement, and the returns on this tiny investment would be enormous! Just imagine the incredibly positive effects these inexpensive changes would have on the communities in this area!

Thank you for reading and if you can help us work to accomplish these changes please comment here or email me robertissem at gmail dot com.