Highway 17

The Isle of Wight 2nd District is facing an issue: the ability to cross U.S. 17 at Sugar Hill Road safely. In the past four years, the citizens of Isle of Wight County have experienced six major accidents, all with significant loss of property and one life. In the past four months, we have seen three accidents at this very intersection. All these accidents have permanently affected the families involved.

During the Nov. 17 Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors meeting, the Virginia Department of Transportation presented three expensive yet inefficient options for the Sugar Hill Road and U.S. 17 intersection. Neither the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors nor VDOT are not seeing or hearing that the citizens are more worried about crossing U.S. 17 than we are about traffic flow. Not one of the three solutions presented during the Nov. 17 board meeting addressed the issue of crossing U.S. 17 from the left and only focused on converging traffic from the right. These solutions do not address our concerns.

The citizens of Isle of Wight demand more from our Board of Supervisors. We require that the board advocate for the citizens of Isle of Wight and not just accept what VDOT presents as the only available options. It is unacceptable for the board to refuse to push back on VDOT because VDOT does not “support” a traffic signal, or VDOT believes it may take a traveler a few more minutes to get from the Suffolk line to the James River Bridge. Preventing accidents and saving lives should be the focus and priority of both VDOT and the board.

— Jason Rich, Carrollton