PORTSMOUTH
Several residents who could be displaced by the proposed Martin Luther King Freeway extension attended a public hearing Tuesday night where others pointed out the project has been long in the planning.
Nearly 30 people from the North Truxtun, Wilson Ward/Gosport and Arcadia Heights communities came to show support for residents of five homes on Trexler Avenue who have been informed they could be displaced by the extension.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has said that 21 residences and nine businesses could be displaced by the extension.
The $195 million project would link the Midtown Tunnel to Interstate 264 and reduce truck traffic through city streets.
It is part of a larger project to add another tube to the Midtown Tunnel and upgrade it and the Downtown Tunnel.
Dennis Heuer, VDOT'S Hampton Roads district administrator, said during a presentation to the City Council that the extension has been in the planning for the past 20 years.
Resident Eugenia Burton said she's known about the project since 1990 and supported it to relieve congestion.
James Overton, president of the Wilson Ward/Gosport Civic League, said he found it hard to believe that a project of the magnitude of the extension would affect only a handful of houses. He said it could also affect the quality of life for other neighborhood residents.
Overton said he was torn about the project. He said he knew it was progress and it would be good to get trucks off the road.
"But I just can't see displacing people who have already been through this before," Overton said.
Councilwoman Marlene Randall said that some people who had already been displaced when I- 264 was originally built could be moved again.
Vice Mayor Bill Moody Jr. said he would not vote to support the project until he received more details, such as how much a toll on the tunnel might cost.
The council is scheduled to vote on a resolution of support for the design of the project on July 22, but the city is not providing funding for the project.
Jen McCaffery, (757) 446-2627, jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com
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The Greater Good
Portsmouth suffers a daily assault all over the midtown and downtown areas due to ports associated trucks. High, London, Turnpike, Airline, Effingham, Frederick are all clogged by trucks traveling between the interstate highways and the ports. This project will remove almost all container trucks from our local streets, which will benefit all Portsmouth citizens. I hope Council will consider the interests of all 100,000 not just a few.
MLK shortcut
Barge loads of containers are sent from Norfolk, where they were off loaded, to Portsmouth PIT, to ease Norfolk' Hampton Blvd. truck traffic
problems. How about Portsmouth' traffic problems?
Extention of MLK
Let me see if I have this idea of extending the MLK straight. Portsmouth and DOT want to make it easy for the trucks to get to 264! Where are the trucks going to come from??? Didn't Norfolk ban trucks thru Norfolk from NIT???. And aren't they building a train track in the middle of the Road from the Ports. Marine Term. to reduce the amout of Truck Traffic???. Maybe the VP should see who the owners of the property are that Bought fot this project??. Maybe they should think why are we doing this?? With the new terminal will the little port in Port Norfolk even get any ships??