Traffic engineers vow improvements for accident-prone Norfolk junction

PAUL WEBER is a get-along kind of guy.

When he talked about the woman who flipped him off on the Berkley Bridge the other day, he added, "She looked like a nice woman."

So, when he told The Warrior that there's an accident problem at Colley Avenue and 26th Street in Norfolk and called it "suicide alley," he's not just stirring the pot. Five times in the past year and a half, he said, he's witnessed the aftermath of an accident at the intersection.

A year and a half ago is when Weber and his wife moved to Norfolk from Chesapeake.

"When you see that many accidents yourself," Weber said, "then I'm thinking, 'How many happen when I'm not here?' "

Plenty, according to Norfolk Police Department records. Nineteen reportable ones in 2005 through 2007.

Weber's only guess at the problem: Conflict between left-turn traffic on southbound Colley and through traffic on northbound Colley.

The Warrior forwarded the issue to Norfolk traffic engineers.

Guzin Akan, who heads the traffic division, told The Warrior that her department applied for state grant money to make some improvements. The grant was awarded.

Upcoming are signal heads for each eastbound lane on 26th Street, more one-way signs on 26th, pedestrian signals and better signage at each approach. All are to come over the next six to eight months.

Let's hope the next round of accident numbers reflects the changes.

Watch out!

Virginia Beach: Lanes will be closed in both directions along Lynnhaven Parkway through Sunday for utility and road work.

Also in the mailbag:

Reader Mary Martin of Virginia Beach passes along this curiousity.

Look under “chutzpah” in the dictionary, and you may well discover the identity of the dump-truck driver mentioned below.

“I recently saw a dump truck with an only partially secured load and big letters on the back that had an admonition to stay back 6,000 feet. Let’s see … 300 feet is one football field’s length. How in creation does this guy presume that he gets 20 football fields’ lengths to himself on the interstate as he drops sand in every direction?”