Only about two dozen people turned out last Thursday night for a public meeting on ways to improve traffic congestion along Gloucester’s Main Street, but they offered a number of fresh ideas of how to improve the 2½-mile corridor.

There were the expected comments to fix the intersection of Main Street at John Clayton Memorial Highway, as well as new comments ranging from ways to reconfigure the traffic flow coming to and from Ware House Road to improving turn lanes at Fiddlers Green Road and Route 17.

Larry J. Marcus, associate vice president and Mid-Atlantic planning practice leader for consultant HNTB Corporation of Arlington, said his company was contracted by the Virginia Department of Transportation to study the Main Street corridor from the 17 Business South intersection at Fox Mill Center to the 17 Business North intersection at Newington Baptist Church. Marcus said that consultants and transportation and county officials had met several times in recent months to begin airing suggestions of how to improve Main Street’s traffic flow.

Marcus said the public was brought into the mix last week, with short presentations given twice during the three-hour meeting and then general comments solicited in an informal, conversational style meeting between the consultant, VDOT officials and the public.

To view this article in its entirety, subscribe here. Already an online subscriber? Login Here