Which East End street do you think you'll get killed crossing?

Church Hill is “walkable” in the sense that it is a decently dense neighborhood with decent sidewalks and a clutch of restaurants and retail stores anchoring the corners of residential blocks and flanking major corridors like Jefferson Avenue and North 25th Street. It’s great! We love it! It’s a real selling point!

Of course, just because you can walk, doesn’t mean you should. Is Church Hill “walkable” in the practicable sense? The “I, Pedestrian, feel safe and protected from motorists” sense? Somewhat. Kind of. Depending on the block, time of day, and whether the jagoff in the jalopy approaching that stop sign just received a text message they’d like to respond to. Your mileage may vary—unless you get slaughtered by a driver as you cross E. Broad St., in which case, your pedometer will have logged its last step.

It was a deadly holiday season for pedestrians in the city of Richmond. As you may have heard, Bill J. Martin, a Church Hill resident and the longtime director of The Valentine, was killed by a motorist as he crossed the street in front of City Hall on December 28th. (More on Martin’s death, below.) His was not the only grisly death-by-driver over the past two weeks. On January 3rd, a 26-year-old woman named Kristin Tolbert was mowed down by a motorist in a hit-and-run on Semmes Ave.; on January 7th, a 64-year-old man named Donald Jaciuk was run down by the driver of a dump truck. In all, six pedestrians have been killed in Richmond in the past month. We are lucky that none of this recent bloodshed happened in the East End’s streets. But luck is not a strategy.

How many drivers have you seen blow through a stop sign on E. Broad St., reader? How many times have you witnessed a driver bomb into a roundabout on E. Clay St. at high speed because there are no bump-outs forcing them to brake as they enter the intersection? How many times have you found yourself halfway across the crosswalk on N. 25th St. only to realize that there’s a driver whipping a left from Q St. who doesn’t even see you in the crosswalk? I could go on, but you get the point. There are lots of dicey stretches in the East End. Which one do you think you’re most likely to be killed crossing?

In response to the recent spate of grim deaths, Mayor Danny Avula on Thursday announced the formation of a Department of Transportation within the city’s existing Department of Public Works (DPW), and a handful of new and previously promised initiatives to make the city’s streets safer for non-motorists. They include:

• The expansion of the city’s red-light camera program, with four of the 10 designated intersections operational by the end of the month.

• The “immediate deployment” of funding for “life-saving infrastructure” like dedicated bus and bike lanes, left-turn hardening at 80+ intersections, 14 additional pedestrian hybrid beacons for mid-block crossings, and 40 new speed tables by the end of June 2026.

• A task force to escalate pedestrian-safety issues around City Hall and the VCU Health campus, the high-traffic shitshow where Martin was killed.

• A “a multidisciplinary road safety assessment” of E. Broad St. from N. 1st to 14th Sts. to “identify near-term fixes and long-term redesign strategies.”

“We cannot treat traffic deaths as normal,” Avula said at a press conference Thursday, according to a report from The Richmonder’s Graham Moomaw. “And we cannot accept that losing your life while walking, crossing the street, or heading to a bus stop is just part of living in a city.”

He’s right, and he should say it. Now we must monitor DPW and the rest of Avula’s administration to make sure they follow the doctor’s orders, and fast. And not just them. Richmond Police Department has to be held accountable to improving traffic-enforcement metrics. It and the city’s private parking-services vendor must more aggressively ticket drivers whose illegal park jobs obstruct existing bike lanes and sidewalks and obscure visibility at intersections.

“We’re going to redouble our efforts this year,” RPD Chief of Police Rick Edwards said Thursday, per the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Samuel P. Baker, adding that the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, which is responsible for bringing charges and securing convictions against drivers, takes these cases “very seriously.” (Richmond CA Colette McEachin did not attend the press conference.) We’ll see.

Keeping up the pressure, especially as it pertains to the East End, will require leadership from Cynthia Newbille, the current Richmond City Council president and longtime 7th District member. She was not alongside Avula at Thursday’s press conference, and did not respond an earlier request for comment on whether Martin’s death had changed her perspective on the efficacy of the city’s current funding and implementation approaches to Vision Zero, the street-safety program then-mayor Levar Stoney brought to Richmond in 2017. (Avula, who re-upped the city’s commitment to the program in late October 2025, issued a statement to The Lookout through his spokesperson; see below.)

We already know how to redesign roads to slow drivers down and make everyone else safer. It’s long past time to muster the political will to actually do it. Much like the city writ large, the East End is hardly as walkable in practice as it should be in theory. As is all too clear from the past few weeks, the difference between the two could mean your life.

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

🕊️ Remembering the late Bill Martin

After receiving a few tips from readers that Martin lived in the neighborhood, I broke my holiday editorial hiatus to publish a brief web-only item on December 29th about his tragic death, and to do a little reporting on the situation.

“The horrific tragedy reinforces Mayor Avula’s ongoing commitment to the City’s Vision Zero work to eliminate traffic deaths,” Mira Signer, the mayor’s press secretary, told The Lookout in an emailed statement. “There is more work to be done, and the Mayor won’t be satisfied until every Richmond resident can move safely through our streets.” Signer provided the city’s data on traffic deaths over the past three years, which I’ve charted above.

The RTD published a full obituary on Martin, and Style Weekly yesterday ran a lovely remembrance of the man and his contributions to Richmond. If you knew Martin from the neighborhood and have a memory to share with The Lookout’s readers, please get in touch privately, or comment below:

Though she didn’t respond to The Lookout’s request for detailed comment about Vision Zero, Council President Newbille did issue a general statement of sympathy about Martin’s death via Facebook. You can read that, alongside statements from Avula and The Valentine, in The Lookout’s initial report.

🗞️ Getting schooled by the “education governor”

I know I said I was going to take a breather over the holidays, but I couldn’t resist filing another installment of Mad Enough to Blog It™️ about the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s December 21st feature on outgoing governor/privaty-equity cad Glenn Youngkin’s record on education policy after four years in office. Paying subscribers can read it here:

As a reminder, The Lookout’s standard coverage will always be free, but bonus items like Mad Enough to Blog It™️ are exclusively for paying subscribers. Thanks to everybody who has purchased a subscription so far!

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Get the Flock out: Richmond’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter is hosting a teach-in about RPD’s ongoing use of ICE’s favorite surveillance system tomorrow (1/10) from 10am-1pm at the Main Library. Register here.

• Post-holiday reset: Take note that Blue Atlas is closed through Sunday (1/11) for a staff break. Love that for them. Info here.

• Eyes out for Entrecote openings: If you, like me, missed scoring a reservation to Grisette’s fifth-annual beef bacchanal (1/26-31), set yourself an alert on Resy for cancellations, or shoot ‘em an email and beg for bar seats. Deets here.

• Sketch it out: Triple Crossing Beer is calling all local artists to submit proposals for a logo to celebrate its 12th anniversary. The deadline is the end of the month. More details here.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.