By Chloe Hawkins, Capital News Service

RICHMOND, Va. ‒ An interstate divided the Jackson Ward neighborhood in Richmond decades ago, and now leaders hope a bridge will help reunite it.

The proposed project area for a bridge deck to better connect the neighborhood runs from the Belvidere Street bridge to east of the North First Street bridge over Interstate 95. Federal dollars from a new program will help fund the project.

The interstate was built almost 70 years ago, and in recent years many citizens and leaders have acknowledged its long lasting impact on the community. Local and state agencies launched the Reconnect Jackson Ward Feasibility Study in January 2022 and utilized citizen input throughout the process. Grant applications were submitted last October to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program.

Democratic Virginia U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced in late February nearly $3 million in federal funding to improve transportation infrastructure and reconnect communities in Richmond and Norfolk. 

Approximately 20 states have used transportation departments to build connections over highways, according to the final report from Reconnect Jackson Ward. Design elements include bridges, caps and lids to cover highways and create parks and pedestrian and bicycle pathways, according to the report.

The DOT pilot program will help reconnect neighborhoods that lack economic opportunity due to transportation infrastructure, according to a press release. Norfolk will receive $1.6 million and Richmond will receive $1.35 million toward the Jackson Ward project. 

The congressional Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established the pilot program and funded it with $1 billion over the next five years, according to an agency press release. The first round of funding distributed $185 million across 45 U.S. communities.

Warner recently visited the St. Paul's neighborhood in Norfolk to celebrate the project funding. 

"Too many communities were cut off by the development of the interstate system," Warner stated on Twitter. 

The Norfolk I-264 Reconnecting Communities Project will be used to find a solution to a jumbled, 14-lane stretch of interstate called the "spaghetti bowl" that blocks a low-income, majority African-American neighborhood from access to the downtown Norfolk area, according to a press release.

"I'm glad this funding is coming to Norfolk and Jackson Ward to bring together communities that were separated and burdened by the placement of past infrastructure projects," Kaine stated in an email response to an interview request. "I'm looking forward to seeing the positive impacts of these investments." 

Kaine will continue to look for opportunities to help Virginia communities that may be cut off economically, he stated. 

Gary Flowers is the radio host of the "Gary Flowers Show," a weekday morning radio show that highlights civic engagement and Black history, according to Flowers. He leads frequent walking tours through Jackson Ward that explore the influences which led to the ward's earlier identity as the "Black Wall Street" and "Harlem of the South." 

The government must answer a few questions in order to address the displacement in Jackson Ward, he said.

"How will it address the Black residents displaced by I-95?" Flowers said. "Secondly, if there is a connector, then who is being connected?"

The interstate system was needed, but forced Black communities out of their neighborhoods, Flowers said.

"What was nefarious about the placement of I-95 from Maine to Florida is that communities of color were deliberately chosen for placement of the much needed federal highway," Flowers said. 

The "white power structure" chose to build the interstate through the prosperous Jackson Ward community, Flowers said. Approximately 300 Black-owned businesses, seven insurance companies and five banks were located there, according to Flowers.

Flowers hopes to see the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood extended to its original boundaries, and people reimbursed for their losses, he said. 

"To address the question of recompense for those homeowners, business owners and church congregations that were deliberately disrupted by I-95," Flowers said.

The interstate divided a thriving, self-sufficient Black neighborhood, which left the area vulnerable to the impacts of redlining by "white Richmond banks," Flowers said. Redlining is a now illegal practice where lenders avoid investing in individuals who live in communities of color because of their race or national origin.

The federal funding will help on "many different fronts," according to Melody Short, co-founder of the Jackson Ward Collective Foundation and vice president of programming. The Jackson Ward Collective supports current and aspiring Black business owners, according to its website.

"[Funding] helps with beautification, which naturally increases the attraction and value of the neighborhood," Short said. 

The neighborhood also needs funding to help build more affordable housing, she said. 

"It is a neighborhood that has been gentrified, and so historically that pushes the folk out of the neighborhood, and that's not helpful," Short said. "This was once upon a time an all-Black neighborhood."

Preliminary engineering and design plans for the bridge deck are slated to occur over the next two years, according to a project timeline, with construction projected to be complete by 2028.