Editor’s note: Below find a special report. Here’s how to submit tips, documents, correspondence, etc. with The Lookout for editorial consideration.—Dave.

On Tuesday evening, more than two dozen people gathered in Chimborazo Elementary School’s gymnasium to voice concerns over the Richmond Department of Public Works’ ongoing project on Government Road. Unlike the previous confab convened by City Council President and longtime 7th District member Cynthia Newbille regarding the heavily delayed construction, senior officials from the Department of Public Works actually showed up to this one.

“My understanding is that you all have some questions and some comments pertaining to a few projects that we have,” said Bobby Vincent, the long-tenured director of the department, after sharing a hug with Newbille.

For the following hour, residents aired pent-up concerns to Vincent about the city’s plans—or lack thereof—to install better street-safety features on Government Rd. and the intersection of E. Broad and N. 36th Sts. into which it feeds westbound traffic into Church Hill.

In a refreshing reversal of previous equivocations from DPW and Richmond’s Department of Transportation (RDOT), he made firm commitments to some new pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure. But the director also appeared irritated at points by requests for connectivity, protection, and traffic calming that he perceived as beyond the project’s scope, inconvenient for automobile drivers, or personally undesirable.

“I don't want the speed bumps in our city because the speed bumps make people slow down to five miles per hour,” said Vincent, explaining that he believed speed tables were “ideal” because they allowed drivers to maintain more velocity through high-density areas.

“When we're at home in Richmond, we would drive around the block to park right in front of wherever it is we're going, that’s what we do in Richmond,” he said in response to a resident urging him to prioritize non-car traffic in Church Hill.

And how are the residents of Fulton Hill meant to safely navigate Government Rd. on foot when DPW reopens it without a sidewalk spanning its length, as it intends to do in spring of next year? “Very carefully,” the director retorted, drawing murmurs of disapproval from the audience.

When pressed on this remark, Vincent backpedaled. “Don't put in the paper that Bobby Vincent don't care about people in Fulton, because I’ve got family in Fulton,” he said, insisting it simply wasn’t possible to add a sidewalk to the existing project. Pedestrians “are going to have to do what they've been doing, because it simply can't be done with this slope-repair project. I'm not even saying because of budget… The slope repair project did not include putting in that type of an improvement.” He appeared disinterested in an alternative proposal from an attendee to at least build a sidewalk on Glenwood Ave., the swooping, poorly lit road that has served as a detour for the past three years.

Still, at the meeting Tuesday, Vincent acceded to some improvements to the dangerous curve that have been championed by the Chimborazo Park Conservancy and other neighbors since before the project even broke ground. The department will add two speed tables—one at the bottom of Government Rd., and another where it runs into E. Broad St. It will stripe two crosswalks at the top of the hill to enhance pedestrian safety around the southeasterly corner of upper Chimborazo Park. And the department will add more signage to direct drivers properly around the bizarre wedge island that splits the curve where the two roads meet with N. 36th St., and to the hill to flag the 25 mile-per-hour speed limit.

DPW will also stripe a bike lane the length of the hill, but Vincent declined several requests from residents to commit to physical barriers or even flexposts to separate it from automotive traffic. “We're not sure if we're going to put in delineators for that, because it's very narrow,” he said. “We're still in the process of trying to see if we're going to have the bike lane being multidirectional or just one bike lane on one side of the road.”

The bike lane (protected or not) should open with Government Rd., but the rest of the street-safety features will follow “shortly thereafter,” said Vincent. “I would say within 30 days.”

So stand DPW’s priorities on the Government Rd. project. “I want y'all to understand what my role of it is, and my role is to get that street back open,” Vincent said.

Check The Lookout’s previous coverage on the Government Rd. project:

This has been a Lookout special report. Please submit tips, photos, etc. about the East End for editorial consideration. Consider upgrading your subscription and/or buying merch to support independent journalism about your neighborhood.