The city of Charles Town, West Virginia, is making the most out of a frustrating situation: With an upcoming 90-day closure of State Route 340, which connects a vast amount of commuters, they’re encouraging drivers to treat Charles Town’s downtown as a third place.
“We would love for you to EMBRACE your THIRD PLACE,” said an announcement Facebook post. “And we want downtown Charles Town to be your third place. What is a third place you ask? It is the place outside your home/work where you connect, relax, and belong.”
The city has even offered doctor’s notes to drivers who don’t want to get caught up in the rerouting madness, and weren’t granted permission to work from home.
“Love it! We will welcome any and all displaced commuters downtown!” wrote one commenter.
Route 340 is a vital commuter route, and it’s popular among tourists as well with an estimated 24,500 trips a day along the portion set to close.
The purpose of the road closure is to secure rockfall protection measures associated with the nearby slopes. The clifface is unstable, and people have been injured by tumbling rocks.
The highway connects the rural suburbs of West Virginia and Virginia to Washington, DC, and the proposed detour will add on another hour each way for most commuters. It’s a hard hit for many who already spend an hour or more in the car on the way to work.
In the coming weeks, the group Charles Town Now will be compiling a list of businesses and co-working spaces to get commuters informed about what’s around and how people can get engaged.
“Third places” are vital for community connection and a thriving neighborhood. As Ray Oldenburg, urban sociologist and author of The Great Good Place, put it:
Most needed are those “third places” which lend a public balance to the increased privatization of home life… Though a radically different kind of setting from the home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends… They are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy.
