VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — People are fed up with an intersection at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. They want action and say they hope city leaders finally listen to their concerns.
"Something has got to be done," Ginger Capps explained.
She and several of her neighbors said the intersection of Pacific and 16th Street is dangerous. The latest crash happened there on Monday night.
"We’ve had more accidents here at 16th Street and Pacific Avenue than what is acceptable," Capps said.
Capps lives nearby and is also a member of a committee that looks at issues with traffic, parking, and pedestrians at the Oceanfront. She said she brings this intersection up at every meeting she can.
"How many lives is it going to take that you are going to lose or that these traffic accidents are going to alter before you sit up and take notice?" she asked. "At this point, I’m calling it negligence."
Earlier this year, city officials lowered the speed limit on Pacific Avenue from 35 mph to 25 mph during the tourist season. Now, it’s back up to 35 miles per hour.
"Nobody is slowing down here," Capps said. "In fact, they are speeding up to beat the light."
Virginia Beach Public Works spokesman, Drew Lankford, said Public Works leaders just started a mobility study last week at the Oceanfront. It’s a six-month project and he said after it’s completed, officials will have a better idea of what needs to be fixed.
"We are looking into it and we are going to have traffic engineering is going to check the number of accidents and send someone down and look into it and see if there is something abnormal something that stands out. Something that really does call for maybe we need to go back and revisit," Lankford said.
Capps hopes the study is done before another accident happens here.
13News Now reached out to a Virginia Beach Police spokeswoman to get exact numbers on how many accidents happened at the intersection at 16th and Pacific.
Officer Linda Kuehn said of the 11 crashes between 1500 and 1799 Pacific Avenue this year, none so far have been fatal.
