ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – It’s almost been five years since Roanoke County adopted the 419 Town Center plan and work continues to progress.
On Thursday, community members got a chance to see one of the next steps as part of the plan in regards to streetscape improvements for Ogden Rd. and Starkey Rd.
The open-house style meeting was the second of its kind focused on that particular area. The first community meeting was held on Oct. 19, 2023, where 89 surveys were completed as part of this first round of engagement, which asked questions about desired streetscape improvements.
Thursday’s meeting gave people ideas of what planners want to do in terms of incorporating sidewalks and bike lanes along the streets.
The project implements the Route 419 Town Center Plan, adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2019.
The county’s Assistant Director of Planning, Megan Cronise, and her team are just getting started.
“We’ve had a lot of success with transportation improvements. We’ve also had a lot of success from an economic development perspective,” Cronise said.
Since the plan was adopted, the area has seen new businesses built such as Chili’s and Popeye’s.
The county was also able to get sidewalks put on both sides of Route 419 to help with pedestrian traffic.
“It all takes time. We have a lot of things moving forward right now but you can’t see it. It’s hard to convey ‘we’ve got all this going on’ when people can’t see those things on the ground yet,” Cronise said.
Now the county wants to build sidewalks along Ogden Rd. and Starkey Rd. Eddie and Dawn Hearp own a business along Starkey Rd. and they say there are some safety concerns.
“I’d say the pedestrian safety is one of the big issues. Numbers of cars and the speed of cars has really increased,” Hearp said.
The county is continuing to look for funding avenues for the project. Throughout the implementation of the 419 Town Center Plan, they have remained cognizant of the county’s dollars.