Stop-sign scofflaws are Church Hill's business

Editor’s note: The column below was originally published on 11/15/24—the very first edition of The Church Hill Lookout. Because this newsletter has grown enormously since, and another legislative session has passed, I’ve adapted it for a reprint.—Dave.

How many drivers run Church Hill stop signs on a daily basis? 10? 100? More? I can personally confirm it’s a multiple-times-daily occurrence at the intersection of East Broad and North 32nd Streets. I remember getting into it with one such scofflaw back in November 2024. After watching a guy barrel his full-size pickup truck westbound through the intersection, I threw up my hands in the universal “what the fuck, man?” gesture. He slowed down to a crawl and rolled down his window; here’s how I remember the exchange:

There was more cursing, but that’s basically it. We jawed back and forth another couple rounds, him slow-rolling down the block the whole time. After he finally drove off, he rolled through the stop sign at N. 31st St., albeit slower. That qualifies as progress when you’re just some guy trying to stem the tide on Church Hill’s stop-sign scofflaws.

This neighborhood is unique in many ways, but this is a citywide problem. People run stop signs and stoplights in Richmond. As much as selfish drivers might pretend it’s a victimless crime, it isn’t. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in October 2024 that the city of Richmond has averaged 235 pedestrian “accidents” and 21 pedestrian deaths every year since 2016. Last summer, two kids—ages 11 and 13—were hit at S & N. 33rd Sts. by a driver who was “charged with disregarding a stop sign.” Thankfully, the kids lived in that instance, but I imagine they’ll be terrified to cross the street for the foreseeable future.

They should be. Hell, you should be. If a scofflaw runs a stop sign and hits you while you’re in your own car, you’ll probably walk away with a bunch of damage and/or injuries and trauma. If they hit you on your bike, or on foot, you might not walk away at all. It’s enough to make you wonder whose business it actually is to improve the safety of our streets here in Church Hill.

Judging by how rare it is to see a cop ticket stop-sign scofflaws at any of our high-volume intersections (and how not-rare it is to see them skip a full stop in their own cruisers), I gather the Richmond Police Department doesn’t see it as a priority. Shortly after that incident in November, The Lookout contacted Dr. Cynthia Newbille, the 7th District’s longtime representative on Richmond City Council, to inquire about her ideas for traffic calming in the neighborhood. She never responded.

Still, I was encouraged to see that one of city council’s three legislative priorities for the 2025 General Assembly session included “expanding authority to place speed cameras in places where vulnerable pedestrian populations can be protected,” and that in January 2025, the body voted to push forward with that project to the extent current state law allows. Other city councils in Virginia have gone further, including stop-sign camera expansion in the legislative agendas they ask their state-level counterparts to champion in the General Assembly, but any forward movement on street-safety at City Hall is worth celebrating.

And it’s important, too, because Virginia’s revanchist, Reconstruction-era “Dillon rule” means Richmond lacks the jurisdiction to expand speed cameras any further than our big beautiful state lawmakers in the General Assembly see fit. “The problem is that people feel like they are able to get away with it, and there's no consequence,” former 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addision told Virginia Public Media recently. He was specifically talking about red-light runners at Arthur Ashe Blvd. and Monument Ave., but he could’ve easily been talking about any intersection in Church Hill—and he correctly fingered the Dillon rule as a bulwark preventing Richmond from acting aggressively to address such dangerous driving.

I’m sympathetic to concerns about policing for profit. According to a recent state report on speed cameras highlighted by The Richmonder, the city has collected over $575,000 in civil penalties using the technology through mid-January 2025. In Richmond, that money is currently earmarked for the Vision Zero Action Plan Fund, which covers the costs of the cameras first, then road redesigns and other safety improvements. It’s a decent chunk of change (especially given Richmond only has a handful of cameras deployed so far) and it’s true that new, tech-abetted revenue generation can create perverse incentives. But we have a legislative process to create guardrails about what the government can do with cash generated by these semi-automated solutions; in fact, the GA late last month sent a bill to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk designed to improve those rules.

I’m less persuaded by privacy critiques. Unlike ALPRs or even Ring-style doorbell cameras, the placements of these devices are advertised, and they’re not “always on” data-collectors. If you don’t drive like a jagoff, speed cameras will infringe your privacy far less than, say, all those Flock devices around the neighborhood, which create searchable databases that cops across the country can access without warrants. (This was a hot topic at the GA this session, too.)

Upstream of how to stop Church Hill’s scofflaws at the wheel, though, I want to underscore the point that, contra to what that pick-up truck driver told me back in November, it’s absolutely our business to try. Running stop signs is selfish, anti-social behavior. People who do it deserve to be hammered with tickets until they start abiding the easy-to-follow, common-sense rules, or stop being able to afford it, whichever comes first. When drivers drive recklessly, they make Church Hill less safe, full stop. If that’s not our business, whose is it?

📜 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!

📈 Welcome to all the new Lookouts!

I try to keep the newsletter coverage about this newsletter to a minimum, because I assume most readers are less interested in that than, say, the identity of the tenant going into the Church Hill Bank building. (If you know, please send The Lookout a tip about it!) But we recently crossed a milestone: there are now more than 320 Lookouts reading The Lookout! Welcome to all the newcomers, I’m glad you’re here, please tell a friend to sign-up while you’re at it:

Seriously, I have neither the budget nor the mental bandwidth to market this thing beyond posters and stickers, so its growth is almost entirely dependent on word-of-mouth referrals from People Like You™️.

Some other topline stats, for those interested:

• Editions sent (all-time): 14

• Open rate (L4): 84.16%, -0.3% from the prior frame

• Click-through rate (L4): 15.87%, -32.9%

As a longtime independent journalist who’s been publishing another newsletter for the past five years (it’s called Fingers, it’s about the booze business, please buy a subscription if you’re interested, thanks!), I can say with some authority that these figures are very, very good. They won’t stay so high forever: the bigger The Lookout grows, the more I’d expect the rates on opens and click-throughs to come down. They’ll also get more stable. That big swing in click-through rate, for example, is partially attributable to evolving structure of the newsletter, and partially to the fact that I just haven’t been publishing for that many months. Small denominators, and so forth. But the upshot for now is that this neighborhood newsletter is growing, and healthily.

🤩 We’ve got stickers

Apropos of all the new Lookouts, a quick reminder that I’ll mail you a few official CHL stickers if you Venmo me $1 (I’m @David-Infante) and include your address in the comment field. Who doesn’t love a sticker?!

Semi-relatedly: if you’re looking for a sticker printer of your own, check out Vinyl Disorder. I’ve used them for years, and while the website is a bit janky, their customer service is prompt, their sales are good, and the stickers always come out great. Use my referral link and we’ll both get store credit. Or don’t, whatever you’re into.

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Keep ‘em composting: Richmond Grows Gardens, the city program that manages those purple compost bins at Chimborazo Playground (and throughout the city), lost its grant and needs donations to keep going. Help ‘em out.¹

• Graveyard grape juice: Friend Bar’s Graveyard Shift late-night went so well last month, it’s back this Friday (3/7) from 9pm-12am, and every first Friday thereafter. Details here.

• Sports and beer: Triple Crossing Fulton has the return of the Richmond Kickers on the big screen 7pm tonight (3/17), and the return of its run club next Tuesday evening (3/11) at 7pm. So many activities.

• To the nines: Toast the ninth anniversaries of Top Stitch Mending and MOTHER Shrub with mocktails from the latter at the former’s newly renovated studio on N. 23rd St. this Saturday (3/8) 11am-3pm. The flyer for the function. 

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.

1  Correction 3/10/25: A previous version of this item incorrectly characterized the nature of Richmond Grows Gardens as a nonprofit group. It is a cit