THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, August 12, 1994                TAG: 9408100199
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER       PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   44 lines

ROUTE 168 SPEAK UP

Tourists traveling to or from a few days of relaxation on the beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks certainly have good reason to hope that the two-lane bottleneck on Route 168 is fixed. Nothing spoils a holiday mood faster than fighting 10 miles of stop-and-go traffic on a hot summer day.

But, even though out-of-towners using the highway typically outnumber Chesapeake residents five to one, it's local motorists who suffer most from the gridlock.

Besides the stress of trying to negotiate Battlefield Boulevard South on our way to and from work and school and shopping, local residents have to live with the disturbing realization that, in an emergency, the clogged highway is a barrier to fire trucks, police cars and ambulances. And, as we learned during the hurricane watch last year, use of the road as an emergency evacuation route renders it dangerously impassable.

The Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Organization calls improvement of Route 168 one of the highest priority unfunded projects in the region.

``Write to Congress when you get home,'' the message flashing from signs erected by the city along Route 168, isn't intended only for strangers who are passing through town. It's good advice for those of us who are already home, too.

Rep. Norman Sisisky, who pushed earlier this year for House approval of $5 million to start widening Route 168, believes his counterparts in the Senate will go along with the allocation if they realize how important it is to those of us who use the road.

You can help by writing a letter. Suggestions about whom to write and what to say appear at the bottom of this page. Send a message to Washington that Chesapeake has lived with the Route 168 bottleneck long enough.

A 29-cent postage stamp and a few minutes of time to let your concerns be heard isn't much of an investment when you consider how much easier daily life would be if Route 168 were a free-flowing, four-lane thoroughfare. by CNB