PETERSBURG, Va. — Years after a Petersburg street started caving in, neighbors say there’s been nothing done to fix it.
“We’re nearing a period of about three years now,” said Calvin Marlow, who lives near the Oak Hill Bridge, now closed between the Oak Hill neighborhood and Crater Road, one of Petersburg’s major thoroughfares.
WTVRMarlow and other residents said the road closure tacks on extra drive time, sometimes upward of 10 minutes, to get out of the neighborhood.
“It’s actually put the community in a state of distress,” Marlow explained. “It’s alarming that the City has not taken the issue up in a more urgent manner.”
Marlow said he worries about his elderly and disabled neighbors who struggle to drive the windy paths through the neighborhood to get to doctor’s appointments or the post office.
“Their life, health, and safety is actually put in jeopardy because emergency services have to go 10 minutes out of their way just get in this community, now with this main thoroughfare cut off,” Marlow said. “Minutes count. A person’s life is on the line when emergency services or the police services have to go an extended route just to get into the community, even when it’s only a few seconds away from this direction.”