©
Hampton Roads didn't suffer a hit from a hurricane Wednesday night. Nobody attacked the naval bases or the port. We merely had some wind and rain, and a few thousand people lost power.
On Thursday, there was no evacuation order. It was just the usual Fourth of July traffic, tourists heading toward our beaches and residents leaving town for the holiday.
But Wednesday's rain - a heavy but hardly unusual summer thunderstorm - contributed to water standing in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, which had to be closed. Both the James River Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel were shut down Wednesday night.
On Thursday, the highways of Hampton Roads backed up as far as 20 miles. Crashes clogged Interstates 64, 264 and 664 for hours. People spent half the morning simply getting to work. Folks heading out of town for the holiday gave up and drove back home again.
Some lucky people managed to get to local streets to navigate around the highways. But even those roads were clogged beyond the usual rush hour.
And all this was caused by a simple summer thundershower. If even one more thing had gone wrong, it's clear that no one would've been able to go anywhere on Thursday. What's not clear is how long we would've been waiting to get out.
Among the few bright patches from our latest transportation collapse: A fair number of commuters weren't working Thursday, so rush-hour traffic wasn't as heavy as usual. The HRBT problem was westbound, so tourists coming to Virginia Beach or the Outer Banks didn't get the worst of the traffic. And police didn't need to worry about speeders.
Still, the confluence of a broken water pump at the HRBT, downed power cables on the James River Bridge and the start of a major holiday weekend produced enough angst - and burned enough fuel - to give us a hint of what things would be like if a major hurricane were bearing down on us.
We'd be stuck. Our roads - even if everything goes right - are inadequate paths to the west and out of a hurricane's way. Around here, something always seems to go wrong in heavy weather.
We know this. Hurricane Isabel was a minimal Category 1 storm when it hit here in 2003. The Midtown Tunnel flooded, and repairs kept it closed for a month. The Virginia Department of Transportation spent $70 million cleaning up after the storm.
Now, with the state unwilling to raise money for even basic maintenance of roads, where would that kind of money come from?
Tunnel operators at the time of Isabel acknowledged that the floodgates hadn't been tested in at least two years and that routine maintenance on the HRBT's floodgates hadn't been done.
Years later, not only is Richmond still incapable of building the highways we so desperately need in Hampton Roads, it's not even able to fix the potholes or maintain the transportation system we do have.
Once again, on Thursday, the weather showed us what that failure to fund the state's crumbling transportation system means for our ability to get out of harm's way: It means we can't.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
I'm a tad confused here...
If the rain mentioned in the article closed down the HRBT, the JRB, and the CBBT, why would anyone think that other crossings, if available, would have escaped such precautions as well? The Mid Town Tunnel incident from Isanbel had everything to do with no attempts made to close the floodgates to begin with. The storm cited was more aberration than anything else. I've always thought that the best route that should be looked at for improvements (to interstate status) is 58 West. It intersects 4 Interstates between Tidewater and Lynchburg. That makes much more sense than the engineering and expense that frequent water crossing engender..
Here's an idea that mayor
Here's an idea that mayor Friam should love: Governor Kaine should personally pay for the maintenance and repairs that can't be worked into the state budget.
He should personally pay half his salary, too, since he is spending an awful lot of time flying out of state to be DNC chairman. While he was on WTOP's "Ask the Governor" program last week, he mentioned that he only did about two days worth of state work in the previous week and spent the rest of the time traveling for the DNC. He defended this by saying that he will, at some later date, reimburse the state for the costs of transportation and his personal State Police Army that follows him around. Of course, he did not mention interest.
There is a reason that tax payers are leary to fund VDOT
I agree that Virginia citizens have let the problem go on for far too long. However, as a citizen of the Commonwealth I can think of two reasons why the taxpayers have been less than willing to give up more of their paycheck to VDOT. The first reason is that the fuel excise tax which is advertised as a road tax but actually only a part of that excise tax goes to the roads. The rest goes to other expenditures not relating to transportation. So if all of the excise tax went to road construction then they may have enough money to build the projects they are talking about. If I am wrong on this, please somebody let me know. Seoond, the VDOT has not shown itself to be the master of efficiency. This week's problems with traffic only reenforce this perception. I realize that the agency has gotten better in the last few years but there is a lot of room for improvement. If I were to build a home with the same planning that they build a road project; the $250,000 home that normally would take four months to build would take over a year to complete and cost about a $ 500,000 when it was finished.
yes we need more roads
We need more ways out of here, but every time a transportation bill is presented the Republicans automatically shot it down.
How long will we have to wait to get more bridges and tunnels.... Until there is a mass death of people trying to evocuate?
What a field day for VDOT!!
They are always crying for more money, but where did the funds come from to build all those fancy new rest areas or the signs every 10th of a mile telling you that you are on I-64? I noticed that they start the pothole fixing thing on westbound 64 before the HRBT to start the afternoon backup sooner. It would not surprise me one bit to find out a supervisor told them to take their time fixing that pump so that people would cry to give them more money. I actually saw VDOT on (I think it was route 17) near Gloucester and they had one truck spraying weeds, another big dump truck with an arrow sign behind him and another pickup truck with an arrow board behind the dump truck. Unbelievable!!!
By all means, Richmond, raise more money for roads!
Meanwhile, Norfolk just spent $11.5 million on Town Point Park and "donated" $1.7 million toward a Virginia Arts Festival headquarters building. That's $13.2 million for a park and an arts headquarters. Mind you, this is only ONE city and TWO local projects. Extrapolate that state-wide and then tell us we're spending the tax money we currently have wisely and are down to the bare bones and need MORE. Sure ... cry poverty and demand higher taxes for transportation. Waaa! Waaa! Waaa!