Stuck in traffic? It's only going to get worse

Even if every project in the region's long-range transportation plan is completed, traffic congestion is projected to double over the next two decades, choking nearly a third of the main roads.

Currently, 12 percent of the region's primary routes are severely jammed during afternoon rush hours, according to the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization. By 2030, the group projects, 29 percent will be clogged.

The gloomy outlook assumes that a number of projects will be in place, including a second Midtown tunnel, light rail in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, a widened Dominion Boulevard in Chesapeake, and several new Interstate 264 interchanges in Virginia Beach.

"Today's problems are only going to get worse," said Rob Case, principal transportation engineer for the planning organization. "And we'll have areas that are not so much a problem today become a problem."

Traffic woes will increase the most in Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Newport News and York County, the organization's Congestion Management Process draft report shows.

The projections were made using transportation modeling tools that are standard in the industry. They take into account regional projections for population growth and employment trends, among other things, Case said.

For a decade, efforts to build new roads and widen overburdened ones have stalled because of dwindling dollars. The state's Transportation Trust Fund has not had a raise since 1986, when the current fuel tax rate of 17.5 cents per gallon was set. And in recent years, tax collections have fallen as motorists, influenced by spikes in gas prices and a weak economy, curtailed their driving.

"The numbers don't surprise me at all," said Commonwealth Transportation Board member Aubrey Layne of Virginia Beach. "In Hampton Roads, we have $19 billion in needs... and just $2.3 billion to spend" in the next 30 years.

Layne worries there won't be enough money even to complete the projects already scheduled in the long-range plan.

"Everybody seems to think it's OK we don't do anything and that somehow it's become acceptable. It's really not," he said. "One day we'll have a major catastrophe on our roads and we won't be able to move anywhere."

Last summer, an eight-hour shutdown of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel because of flooding from a burst water pipe gridlocked traffic regionwide. The backup at the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel stretched 20 miles, and many Norfolk city thoroughfares were overwhelmed.

"We have a huge need for more funding for transportation, and it's only going to be worse in the future," said Camelia Ravanbakht, deputy executive director of the planning group. "We need new sources of revenue."

Measures to increase funding have failed in the General Assembly. In 2008, a regional transportation authority that was created to impose seven taxes and fees was ruled illegal by the Virginia Supreme Court.

With little hope for an immediate infusion of cash, the planning group listed possible strategies for easing congestion in the region's 16 worst corridors, ranging from traffic signal coordination and bike paths to widening roads.

"We really need to look at a wide range of strategies," Ravanbakht said. "We need a better transit system. We need to make the system more efficient by adding the latest technology to our signal systems. We need to improve intersections by adding turn lanes. We need more carpooling, vanpooling and telecommuting.

"It's really going to take a little bit of everything to make our system work and be more efficient. It really isn't about just building highways."

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com