The Dogwood Vietnam Memorial is the first of its kind in the United States having been built in McIntire Park in 1966. In recent years, the monument was relocated to make way for the John Warner Parkway moving it away from dedicated parking.
For the past several years, the memorial’s foundation has been working with the city to try to improve access.
“It’s an aging population and they have a hard time getting up the hill,” said city traffic engineer Brennan Duncan at Council’s January 20 meeting. “The parking sits over in front of the rescue squad and has to cross several different legs of traffic and whatnot to get there.”
The foundation wants to build a new 26-space parking lot just to the north of the U.S. 250 Bypass and construct a 105-foot wide pedestrian bridge that would look similar to the one parallel to the Dairy Road bridge across the U.S. 250 bypass.
The foundation had asked Council to contribute $1 million but elected officials only agreed to contribute $105,000 to a project the foundation is responsible for designing and permitting.
“The foundation will be responsible for all the fundraising, the final design, the permitting construction,” Duncan said. “City will provide oversight through our standard development review permitting process to ensure compliance with city VDOT requirements, [Americans with Disabilities Act] accessibility standards, utility coordination, inspection, long term maintenance considerations.”
The cost estimate for the project is $3.3 million and Duncan said the foundation wants construction to begin this fall. They also wanted the city to agree to accept the bridge as a public asset when it is complete. Duncan said the risk is low to the city but the local government would have to take on the cost of long-term maintenance.
A conceptual sketch of the proposed pedestrian bridge (Credit: Racey Engineering)
This was the first time the matter had gone before Councilor Jen Fleisher and she wanted to know if the foundation had ruled out a shuttle system that could ferry people to the memorial.
“I know a few other Vietnam memorial sites do use that to great success because it is a more dignified and simplified system,” Fleisher said. “You don’t have to go up over a bridge, down a trail to a thing. It’s assisted and it’s ongoing.”
Duncan said that would have been the city’s preference but the foundation was insistent about a bridge.
Fleisher said she thought the idea is an example of over-engineering, but acknowledged she wasn’t on Council when the decision was made to proceed.
Councilor Natalie Oschrin repeated her opposition from last year and said this is another example of the city’s dependence on cars.
“I still can’t get behind turning a grassy tree area into that amount of asphalt,” Oschrin said. “It feels weird to argue against a pedestrian bridge, but it’s really, it’s the parking that I’m struggling the most with.”
City Councilor Michael Payne said he would not support the project if it were being paid for by taxpayers but he reluctantly agreed to let the foundation see if they can be successful.
“Whether they can secure all the necessary funding, that’s a big task and that’s up to them to figure that out,” Payne said.
The motion passed 3 to 2 with Oschrin and Fleisher voting against.
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