THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406100876
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940610 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
The map shows their house - the home where they came to live out their lives - lying less than 50 feet from the proposed highway's margin.
{REST} ``We just want to enjoy life,'' said Terry McElroy, nearly in tears. ``But it feels like our life is being taken away from us.''
Two weeks ago, the city announced that a final route for the expressway will come up for approval in September. ``If there's any route likely to succeed, this is it,'' said Robert Scott, Virginia Beach planning director.
Since then, residents along the proposed route have been hit with a hard but uncertain truth. Their homes and their way of life may be in danger.
Thursday night, about 80 residents from the Princess Anne area met at the Princess Anne Recreation Center with members of the City Council and city staff. They came to discuss the highway while mounting opposition against it.
``I need a commitment,'' Mick Stone, the meeting organizer, told the audience. ``We can stop this thing and go ahead and live our lives the way we want them.''
A citywide letter-writing campaign was discussed and audience members pledged their support.
Many people at the meeting expressed frustration over the project, which one woman said had ``yanked me around for 11 years.''
One of the simplest pleas against the expressway came from 10 1/2-year-old Joshua Morgan, who lives in the Lake Placid development off London Bridge Road.
``I live about three houses from the highway and there's this forest back there and it's beautiful,'' he said. ``That forest is going to lose its home. Maybe die.''
The route is awaiting approval by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This final choice is considered environmentally friendly and is said to have a minimal impact on residents living nearby, Scott said.
The final alignment, which has yet to be engineered, would begin in Chesapeake at the Great Bridge Bypass, a route scheduled to be connected to Interstates 464 and 64. The route would wind south of Stumpy Lake in Virginia Beach and would be elevated along the length of Elbow Road to decrease the environmental impact. Federal officials have said that area contains endangered species like the canebrake rattlesnake and the Dismal Swamp shrew.
The 21-mile expressway was first proposed in 1983 as a vital link between Chesapeake and Virginia Beach and as a way to decrease traffic on nearby Route 44 and Interstates 264 and 64.
But after a barrage of hearings and studies, the four-lane road was nearly killed in 1992 because it would harm the environment, officials said. It was resurrected last year after the path was changed. The road is estimated to cost between $350 million and $500 million.
A final environmental impact statement is scheduled for release in July. Public hearings in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake are tentatively scheduled for Aug. 2-3. The final alignment could be approved in September. Until approval comes, the McElroys will pensively wait and stare at their back yard, where a pair of mallards raise their ducklings and deer come to drink from West Neck Creek.
``It's a feeling like someone is going to take it away,'' Terry said. ``I'm in a free country, paying my taxes the American way, and I don't have a say.'' by CNB