Letter: Make Sure You Plan 35 Minutes to Cross the Highway if You’re a Local on the Eastern Shore

To the Editor:

I live in lower Northampton County. I frequently need to get to the post office across the highway…a trip that should take less than 10 minutes. On a good day, I already know it will take extra time to cross thanks to the steadily growing traffic in this area. But today? Whew. That was a whole other story. It made me realize I needed to speak up again (I’ve written before, including about uncut grass medians on a two-lane highway that nearly caused a fatal accident two summers ago).

I present to you a dilemma: How on earth are we going to manage the level of traffic I saw today? No one could cross. I almost watched someone get T-boned as a big, steady line of vehicles…more fitting for a busy five-lane freeway than a rural Virginia two-lane highway…kept pouring through with no gaps or opportunities to make a move. It was scary. In fact, I myself couldn’t get across the road. 

The stream of traffic never stopped, and you could sense the nervousness of other drivers also trying to venture onto the main road from their various dwellings on the back roads.

You can’t really function in your own community because of the through traffic. I saw plates from all over. What made them choose this route? Did they all pay the huge CBBT toll? Is the answer going to be more stoplights near the Royal Farms and Citgo stations around Townsend? 

I foresee that the accidents we’ve already witnessed this year (ones that have stopped traffic completely and forced detours) will pressure supervisors and others responsible for our safety into a discussion no one particularly wants to have: the possibility of more traffic lights.

That’s the only solution I see right now.

Here’s to all of you out there: please stay safe this summer, especially during the weekend traffic.

—Anonymous

Lower Northampton County

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Wayne Creed

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