Virginia will take temporary control of the portion of Bank Street during the next four General Assembly sessions under a scaled-back plan included in the state budget which the legislature adopted in the last week.
The budget provision will give the state control of a three-block stretch of the city street on the south side of the Capitol Square, but only when the legislature is meeting in its temporary home in the adjacent Pocahontas Building while the new General Assembly Building is built at the top of Capitol Hill.
Under the plan, the state will close off a short portion of the Bank Street entirely to vehicle traffic, from the Commonwealth Park Suites Hotel to the North 10th Street to create a temporary pedestrian plaza between the Pocahontas building on the south side of the street and also a main entrance to the Virginia Capitol on the north.
The street also will become one way from east to west between the 12th and 10th streets, with one travel lane next to the Capitol converted to an expanded pedestrian walkway under the new modified plan, based on a state consultant’s report on the safety and security measures necessary during the legislative sessions next year through 2021.
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The study and also the resulting budget provision reassured Richmond officials that the state would not make any permanent changes to the street, which carries more than 4,000 vehicles a day during the assembly sessions and serves as a critical link in the city’s new plans to expand the bicycle and pedestrian access to Capitol Square.
The plan will allow the state to erect temporary barricades and other traffic controls after Dec. 1 and remove them in two weeks after the end of the legislative session.
John Buturla, the Richmond deputy chief administrative officer for operations, said that “we obviously understand their need.”
Buturla also said that the plan also will not hinder the city’s own initiatives along the Bank Street, which include widening the sidewalk along the Capitol Square and extending a bike lane from the end of the Virginia Capital Trail in the Shockoe Bottom.
A plan to replace the General Assembly Building, a deteriorating patchwork of the four buildings stitched together in the year 1976 will move the legislature and also a host of year-round agencies down Capitol Hill to the Pocahontas Building, between the Bank and also the East Main Streets.
Capitol Police will have to secure the two entrances, one on the Main and other on Bank. While in the session, assembly will use three committee rooms in the Pocahontas and two in the Capitol’s underground extension built in the year 2007 below the South Portico.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
