Recently, on the front page of the VA Pilot, there was an article about whether it would be more effective to widen the HRBT or make a 3rd Crossing.
First, lets take a look at the crossings we have today. The HRBT crosses from Norfolk on the Southside to Hampton on the Peninsula via I-64. The second crossing, the MMBT, crosses from Suffolk on the Southside to Newport News on the Peninsula via I-664.
Now lets look at the proposed third crossing. It would connect Norfolk on the Southside to ... Suffolk on the Southside... How is it a third crossing? It would take heavy traffic from 64 and transport them down a gridlocked 564 (just from base traffic) and put it on the heavy-traffic 664. It would do nothing but delay the inevitable: gridlock.
A real solution would be back to mass transit. The Peninsula is looking at their own light rail system. Norfolk's is under construction. The 3rd crossing would cost an estimated $4.2 billion. Norfolk's 7.4 mile light rail will cost $232.1 million or about $32 million a mile. If the 3rd crossing money was used on light rail, we could get 130 miles of light rail.
I have made a rough map that could cover Hampton Roads by connecting key places such as:
-The OceanFront including Rudee Loop
-VB Convention Center
-VB Municipal Center
-VB TCC
-Great Bridge
-Greenbriar
-Chesapeake Municipal Center
-Cedar Road
-Norfolk Airport
-Little Creek Amphib Base
-Military Circle/Janaf
-ODU
-Norfolk TCC
-Chesapeake TCC
-Portsmouth TCC
-Norfolk Naval Station
-Norfolk Naval Shipyard
-Downtown Portsmouth
-Newport News
-Colosseum
-HR Convention Center
-Langley
-Lynnhaven Mall
The cost to connect all of these with Light Rail? At Norfolk's $32 million/ mile, this 121 mile addition would cost $192 million LESS than the proposed 3rd crossing. Why not create a SOLUTION to congestion instead of a delay? The $192 million would go towards the crossings for the Light Rail. In the end the cost would be no more than the 3rd crossing. This would be much more beneficial to the region in more ways than I can count/list here.
Contact your representatives (city/state) and tell then about this alternative.
View my map
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
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2 comments:
Oh, come on. We don't want real solutions. We want to be able to sit in our cars.
Switching subjects. Did you see the stuff in the Pilot about the country radio station that is registered as a Poquoson station but wants to put a tower in Portsmouth so they get better reach... only the FCC says that they have to reach coverage to 80% of the city to which the license has been let... and the Portsmouth tower wouldn't do that.
Of course, if we were all one city....
Ah, right. Impossible. I mean, come on. No American city has ever taken, say, five entities and formed a single massive city. Well, discounting New York, that is.
If they saw the value... ah, never mind. We're too uppity and provincial and will just remain second rate, or third rate, for the next several hundred years.
I thought I was the only one to ever think of consolidating the 7 cities. Wouldn't it just sound nicer to call it the "7 boroughs", maybe we can call the whole city "The Old Domionion", maybe I'm crazy
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