Courthouse traffic flow will be one-way

Published 11:04 am Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Supervisors in Charlotte County have agreed to change the proposed entrance of the new courthouse from a two-way road to a one-way pattern.

According to Red House/Cullen Supervisor Dr. Nancy Carwile, the request to block off the exit from the new parking lot — located beside the bank — came from a small group of citizens.

“I voted ‘No’ at that time because I felt certain that the one-way traffic pattern would create problems, and that subsequent tie-ups would be less safe anyway, Carwile said. “People would, in those cases, probably use the bank exit when a two-way exit was blocked.”

County Administrator R.B. Clark said the change came about because the Virginia Department of Transportation would not allow the proposed entrance between the existing circuit court clerk’s office and the courthouse.

He said the reason was because the road was too close to the adjacent intersection.

“It went from two-way to one-way for safety,” Clark said, adding the the road was not allowed to be blocked off, needing to be open all the way around.

“(The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality) and VDOT pointed out the expense and problems with the two-way idea,” Carwile said.

She said the board will now return to the original plan “which had been worked out by our architects with planning experience and with the idea of traffic patterns in mind.”

Carwile said she also voted ‘No’ on the issue initially because “it would take more land away from the courthouse green, which had been an issue with many in the first place. It was an expense to put grass on the exit, expensive to set up and expensive to maintain.”