After several years of driving on, or at certain points around Fall Hill Avenue, I thought it would be interesting to better understand what was going on with the construction process. Hearing that a low income housing complex was positioned along Fall Hill Avenue and that often people were walking along the avenue without a sidewalk, intrigued me. Through a compilation of various online sources, VDOT plans, social medias, and pictures I work through the process of the Fall Hill plan, at least based on what is available online to the average person. What is interesting, I found, that the opportunity for resident’s responses before and after the project began were difficult to find. While it appears the changes have been helpful and useful to many, the structure of decision making lacked the involvement or opportunity for involvement by those the changes would directly effect. And this wasn’t because they didn’t want to have a voice, those leading the project seemed to give off the impression they wanted feedback throughout the whole process, yet they didn’t go about doing so as well as they could have.
Link to the PDF:
The Real Deal With Fall Hill Avenue (1)
This was a very visually capturing photo project! This caught my eye because I was interested in a similar topic for my own research. Transportation reconstruction has a huge impact on the community and affects all travelers in the area. Although there were barriers and inconvenienced residents during the process of construction, the results of the reconstruction were beneficial to the flow of traffic. It is interesting to see the community reaction in the section you included with comments from Twitter! I didn’t expect for reactions about the Fall Hill construction to be posted on there. It will definitely be informative to continue to follow response from the community. Great job overall!