To the editor:

I wonder whether members of City Council have traveled down Nansemond Parkway, between Bennetts Pasture and Wilroy roads between 7:30 and 9 a.m. on weekdays.

It is a nightmare, an accident waiting to happen.

First of all, it is crazy not to have a traffic light at the intersection of Nansemond Parkway and Bennetts Pasture Road. You do not have to be an engineer to recognize that a light is badly needed there. Just making a right turn out of Bennetts Pasture Road onto Nansemond Parkway is dangerous. If you try to make a left turn, you are endangering your life and the lives of others as well.

When City Council gave Norfolk Southern permission to use the railroad near the intersection of Nansemond Parkway and Wilroy Road, this just made a very bad situation even worse.

When a train crosses this two-lane road, traffic is sometimes tied up for 30-45 minutes from the intersection of Nansemond Parkway and Wilroy Road to Nansemond River High School.

Council did not provide for a right turn lane on Nansemond Parkway or a left turn lane to be built on Wilroy Road to allow for at least some movement. Why was such a measure not taken?

About a month ago, when a national drug store chain wanted to move into downtown, City Council gave them a very hard time, because the chain wanted its customers to be allowed to exit onto Main Street.

One councilman said, “I cannot, in good conscience, vote to allow the drug store chain to make a right turn onto Main Street because of the potential for a accident to happen.”

Where was that same good conscience when it came to the safety of the citizens of Nansemond Parkway and others who take that route?

Michael Jones
Suffolk