Hampton Roads Transportation

[urbanvb]

According to Pilotonline in a poll it appears like most oppose Congress funding the interchange on I64.

article

[vdogg]

According to this pilotonline poll it seems that most people are against this.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to Pilotonline in a poll it appears like most oppose Congress funding the interchange on I64.

article

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I beat you.

[urbanvb]

shucks

[rusthebuss]

I think this is a really good project. Remember those people that are opposing this are the same ones opposing projects like the Town Center so choose who you side with carefully. This project will generate more tax dollars.

[vdogg]

I think this is a really good project. Remember those people that are opposing this are the same ones opposing projects like the Town Center so choose who you side with carefully.

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Not turning this into a political debate at all (just using this as an example) but 364 out of 365 days a year I oppose the republican view. That being said I have found myself fervently in the corner of of my republican reps/senators on the Granby Tower issue. I do not blindly approve of or oppose things based on who has or has not supported my views in the past. I take each issue as it comes and on this issue I find myself squarely on the side of the Nimbys, perhaps for different reasons, but this time we're playing for the same team.

[vdogg]

Here's a good editorial on the issue story

[rusthebuss]

Well I very rarely lean to the democrat (dumbascrap) side but I still think this a good project. This is a good development and alot of private money is going into this. MORE TAX MONEY FOR THE CITY.

[rusthebuss]

Here's a good editorial on the issue story

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Also when democrats come together its a joyous time! Bunch of hypocrits to me. I can do it but you can't is what this boils down to.

[okinawatyphoon]

HRT to get $4.165 million for facility ... maybe - from Inside Biz

[hoobo]

I think this is a really good project. Remember those people that are opposing this are the same ones opposing projects like the Town Center so choose who you side with carefully. This project will generate more tax dollars.

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Well, that's a nice generality. I supported TC, 31st St, the new convention center, the Sportsplex, and the Amp, and I support the Southereastern Parkway. I'll even say that I'm undecided about the employment of a TIF to help fund the redevelopment of Lynnhaven Mall, mainly the parking structure. However, I am against widening Shore Drive and against any city-proposed riverfront-type project where Bubba's, Chick's Oyster Bar, and Dockside Inn sit. All these projects have been out in the open for citizens to study and on which to make informed decisions.

For example, looking at 31st St, it made more sense to build a hotel on part of the land because a fairly sizable park would be built on the other half. In addition, other parks on the oceanfront appear underused, there were the questions of where these park users would park and where would the money come from to pay for and maintain a park, and the beach is available as one massive park. After reading both the City's and the Pro-Park agruments, I was able to form a conclusion.

As for the CBN project, I can't judge it without any information. Has CBN released anything? Have any traffic studies been performed to see how this project as well as the proposed interchange would affect existing roads and traffic patterns? Has the FHA approved building an interchange? Will VB and Cpeake sign off on this project? I can't be for or against the project without answers to those questions. What I am against is the appropriation of federal funds to a project that hasn't been approved and may not even be approved. I know how politics work, but there are some instances where it gets a little ridiculous. This is one of them. Are the representatives representing the 600,000 people in their district or CBN/Robertson's interests? Is Senator Allen representing 7 million Virginians or just one? I'm sure these congressmen are aware of transportation needs of the area, yet they allowed political favor to push to fund a project about which no one knows anything.

[rusthebuss]

I-64 shut down after truck tears interstate sign down.

[vdogg]

I-64 shut down after truck tears interstate sign down.

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Yeah, I was watching that on the screens at work. They had quite a headache today and it is a miracle that no one was hurt! The woman whos car the trailer landed on was one lucky person indeed.

[urbanvb]

Yeah, I was watching that on the screens at work. They had quite a headache today and it is a miracle that no one was hurt! The woman whos car the trailer landed on was one lucky person indeed. 

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Someone tonight told me part of her car was literally chopped off.. or something like that but I am not sure exactly what that means.

[vdogg]

Someone tonight told me part of her car was literally chopped off.. or something like that but I am not sure exactly what that means.

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When the truck trailer hit the sign it completely tore off and flipped vertically over (This was a dump trailer used for hauling large amounts of trash but it was empty at the time). The woman was travelling directly behind the truck and happened to be traveling at just the right speed that when the trailer flipped over she wound up inside/underneath the empty trailer. It crushed the passenger side but she was completely unscathed and managed to crawl out from underneath the trailer via an area that was being held up by the crushed portion of the car. It was barely high enough for a human to fit under but she got out safe and sound.

[urbanvb]

totally amazing.

[rusthebuss]

I was in a train wreck that happened here in the 80's and I can share the feeling that she had when that happened. I bet she felt it happening in slow motion too.

[rusthebuss]

Pics of that bad accident yesterday with the rig

[mercuex]

I usually don't give Hampton enough credit, but in today's Daily Press, Mayor Kearney makes an EXCELLENT case for expanding the HRBT before we start drawing up fantasyplans for a third "Crossing" (in quotes since it wouldn't be an independent bridge-tunnel system).

The link is here.

Local citizens and tourists who endure backups, gas fumes and frustration in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel each day unfortunately don't have much relief in sight.

As noted in the July 24 editorial ("Third crossing"), the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is comprised of leaders from each of our cities in the region, has rejected widening the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The MPO is planning to ask the state and federal governments to OK a plan for paying for the third crossing and a variety of other worthy road projects - but no improvements to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

Many local businesses depend on the free movement of goods and people across the bridge-tunnel. Our region's tourism industry also depends on the ability of visitors to travel quickly and easily. Today it is a challenge. Tomorrow it will be worse. In the future it will be virtually impossible.

The reality is that the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, from which the proposed third crossing would extend, is operating well below capacity. The third crossing and its additional elements, at a cost of more than $4 billion, would require 80 cents or more per trip in tolls on the region's roads and bridges, an 8-cent increase on the gas tax, a one-half percent increase in the sales tax, a $50-per-vehicle registration fee, and a 1 percent motor vehicle sales/use tax - all new consumer taxes largely targeted at our local citizens.

Meanwhile, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel is carrying more than 25,000 more cars per day than it was ever designed to handle. Improvements to the bridge-tunnel were discussed but not adopted. These include three new tubes - one two-lane tube traveling east; another two-lane tube west; and a center tube for emergency traffic or eventual bus or light-rail mass transit. These vital improvements to the HRBT would come to less than half the cost of the Monitor-Merrimac third crossing proposal.

Councilman Randy Gilliland, who serves as the Hampton MPO voting member, has noted that without these improvements to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel traffic in the years to come will be backed up on Interstate 64 far worse than today. Ironically, it would also make it almost impossible to even use the I-664 route to the third crossing, due to severe congestion west of the I-64/664 split.

[emphasis added -ed]

Putting a toll on the HRBT, while making no improvements to that important thoroughfare, is beyond reasonable logic. This is indeed a "mobility issue" that looks to the future of the Hampton Roads area, our quality of life, the growth or stagnation of our regional economy, the ability of our military to function at the highest level, and the safety of our citizens in the event of a hurricane or homeland security event.

Kearney is mayor of the city of Hampton.

Please read it.

Edited August 12, 2005 by mercuex

[willy]

The new transportation bill. Where's all that money going?

This is where all the money is going for road projects

[mercuex]

The new transportation bill. Where's all that money going?

This is where all the money is going for road projects

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Thanks.

$2,672,000.00 for bus crap.

$0.00 for LRT.

$0.00 for smart growth.

[willy]

The highest price item on the menu:

Construction of dedicated truck lanes on I-81, cost $100,000,000.

[mercuex]

The highest price item on the menu:

Construction of dedicated truck lanes on I-81, cost $100,000,000.

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I've decided that Federal money is appropriated by chimpanzes. I say more fiscal power be given to the states/localities regarding things like transportation and education. We know what we need to do.

[willy]

We need to call Canada to see if they will take Alaska off our hands. They are costing us waaaaay to much. How in the hell did they get that much money????

[okinawatyphoon]

We need to call Canada to see if they will take Alaska off our hands. They are costing us waaaaay to much. How in the hell did they get that much money????

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I saw that on Fox News and supposedly they are important people on the House or Senate or the transportation board.....??...damn I can't remember....I hate when that happens.

I'll try to look for an article or something.

[mercuex]

ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - Two huge Alaska bridge projects that won funding in the newly passed U.S. transportation bill, including a $220 million span the size of the Golden Gate Bridge in a city of fewer than 8,000, are well worth the money, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record) said on Monday.

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"I remember when I was a young person in California, when people accused the people in Washington (D.C.) of being wasteful in thinking about building a bridge called the Golden Gate Bridge because no one lived in Marin County at the time," Stevens said at a news conference, referring to San Francisco's iconic red bridge.

Skeptics say the proposed Alaska bridges waste taxpayers' money and harm the environment, essentially providing government-subsidized access for companies to log trees, dig up minerals or extract other resources.

The transportation bill, passed in the U.S. Senate last week, authorized over $220 million for a 200 foot-high (61-meter-high) road bridge to connect Ketchikan, a city of fewer than 8,000, to a ferry-served island that holds the local airport and is home to about 50 people.

Another $229 million, out of a total package of $1 billion for Alaska, was earmarked for a 2-mile bridge from Anchorage to a sparsely inhabited section of marshes and muskeg across the glacier-fed Knik Arm channel.

Those funds are for preliminary work, and estimates put the total cost of the bridges much higher, at more than $2 billion for the Knik Arm bridge alone.

"We just think that there's got to be a better way, a better way to appropriate money and a better use for the money," said Steve Cleary, executive director of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group.

On Monday, a swimming coach from southeast Alaska began a 92-mile protest swim in icy Lynn Canal to call attention to a controversial $15 million project to begin building a road connecting the Alaska state capital of Juneau to the town of Skagway and the highway that leads out of it.

Ted Stevens, the Republican Senator from Alaska, is Chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Jesus Christ I can't believe the kind of pork that is allowed to stay in bills like this. Our transportation crisis is far freaking worse than Ketchikan's. I PROMISE.

It's this crap that makes me want to yell at my Congressmen/Senators to push for constitutional change to give back more of our money. Especially if it's going to be spent like this!! It's a freaking crime.