UPDATE: Victim identified as Vincent D. Kern, 64, of the City of Falls Church
A Falls Church City resident was killed crossing W. Broad St. at Pennsylvania Ave. at 6:40 p.m. Sunday night, Dec. 5, a tragedy that the developer of The Byron mixed-use project near the location blamed on the failure of the City to place at stoplight at the intersection, which he’d agreed to pay for over six years ago.
A Falls Church City resident was killed crossing W. Broad St. at Pennsylvania Ave. at 6:40 p.m. Sunday night, Dec. 5, a tragedy that the developer of The Byron mixed-use project near the location blamed on the failure of the City to place at stoplight at the intersection, which he’d agreed to pay for over six years ago.
The victim, identified as Vincent D. Kern II, 64, of 902 Madison Lane in Falls Church, was a “regular” at the Mad Fox Brewing Company, according to Mad Fox owner Bill Madden, and was crossing from there to his temporary home in the Inns of Virginia when he was hit by a van driving on W. Broad. According to Madden, in a letter to City Hall sent today, the victim was described as a “long time City resident” who was elderly and capable of only walking slowly, and was staying at the hotel while his home was being repaired follwoing a fire.
Madden said Mad Fox employees “helped him cross the street in the past as he found it difficult to walk up or down Broad Street to get to a crosswalk.” He said that Sunday night one of his patrons “saw the incident, had his friend call 911 and tried to resuscitate the victim performing CPR.” But unfortunately, he said, “the man died on the spot.”
Ed Novak Jr. of Nova-Habitat, which developed the Byron, told the News-Press Monday that his company “paid for a traffic signal at Pennsylvania and Broad over six years ago as part of the ‘community benefit’ fees for the Byron. The Byron has also generated millions in net tax revenues for the City and Mad Fox is generating meals taxes. Yet the one item the City to provide back to us, a simple much-needed traffic signal, has been stalled by excuses and runaround nonsense responses over the past five years.”
City officials told the News-Press Wednesday that efforts to obtain that signal are in the works, awaiting funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation expected in the summer of 2011.
The accident caused Broad Street in both directions to be closed for two hours during the police investigation. There are no charges at this time as the investigation continues.
