Jagged rocks have popped out of ragged holes on some of South Hampton Roads' busiest interstates - pieces big enough that Lt. David Boisselle said he steers around them on his daily commute into Norfolk.
"Some of these chunks are scary. They're like boulders or something," said Boisselle, who travels along Interstate 64 on his way to the Joint Forces Command.
On westbound I-264 in Norfolk near Campostella Road, the signs of decay are more severe. The gravel beaten out of broken concrete has begun to pile up on the shoulders as if spilled from a passing truck.
These are daily reminders that the region's interstates are aging under relentless traffic that in some sections tops 240,000 vehicles a day.
Help for these travel-weary roads is on the way - not nearly enough to fix everything but enough to correct the worst problems, Virginia Department of Transportation officials said.
This month, Denton Concrete will begin cutting out and replacing some sections of local interstates. The $1.8 million repair contract is a fraction of what is needed to make the interstates smooth and fracture-free, but it's all the money VDOT has at the moment.
"We're going to start with the worst of the I-264 potholes, and then we'll move to I-64 and I-664," said Mike Johnson, VDOT's project manager. "We will not fix every pothole out there. We will have to prioritize."
Some notably bad sections are near the Norfolk entrance to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, where the road surface is patched and occasionally uneven. B ad spots, however, can be found along most sections of the interstate.
All of the work will be done at night and will require significant lane closures to allow heavy construction equipment to park on the highway. The trucks will be gone by the morning rush hour.
Crews will saw out individual sections of the interstate, remove them and pour new patches with a quick-curing concrete that will support traffic by morning.
This kind of concrete is standard for highway repair work because it limits commuter disruptions, but it does not last as long as the original material, some of which is 30 years old, VDOT officials said.
"The areas where we will be working already have patches that are 10 or 15 years old," said Bill Collier, administrator of VDOT's Norfolk office. "Generally, if we get 10 years out of quick-curing concrete, we're pretty happy."
VDOT expects workers to make about three or four repairs each night. The work will continue through the summer.
Interstate repairs can vary in their attention to detail, depending on how much money is spent. Regular commuters on the Peninsula know that I-64 has undergone significant improvements in the past few years - even though it remains narrow west of Hampton Center Parkway and on to Richmond.
In addition to replacing bad joints, contractors on the Peninsula also milled the road surface in places and repaved the shoulders to give travelers a ride that's like new. That work cost $21 million, VDOT said.
No such extensive repair is planned on the south side. "We know that the needs far exceed the amount of money we have," Collier said.
The repairs will coincide with another, less visible, effort to turn over all minor maintenance of Hampton Roads' interstates to private companies, relieving VDOT of a duty it has held since the roads were built. The General Assembly ordered the change, arguing that it was a more efficient way to spend tax dollars.
Starting May 15, all grass clipping, ditch cleaning and other minor repair work will be handled by TMC Inc. of Chesapeake under a five-year, $32.2 million contract. Infrastructure Corp. of America will assume the same duties on the Peninsula under a three-year, $14.6 million contract, VDOT said.
Neither of these contracts will involve repairs as complex as those that motorists such as Boisselle worry about.
For Boisselle, however, any progress would be welcome.
"I'm not asking for a whole new road," he said. "But these severe potholes that just get worse and worse, they need to fix those."
Tom Holden, (757) 446-2331, tom.holden@pilotonline.com
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