THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409210444
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
A group of largely black churches and civic leagues around Brambleton Avenue took a step Tuesday toward defeating a proposed downtown bypass that they fear would cut their neighborhood in half and destroy its vitality.
The City Council voted unanimously to take out any reference to the bypass off Interstate 264 in a resolution endorsing a proposed expansion of Norfolk State University.
The council had wanted to get NSU on record as knowing a bypass would come through the area. But more than 100 Brambleton residents showed up to oppose the bypass, and the council's three black members refused to endorse it.
The combination was enough to sway the other four council members who originally had been united in favoring some reference to the bypass in the resolution.
The bypass is intended to divert traffic away from downtown streets. Motorists could travel to Ghent and the medical complex more quickly and avoid the core of downtown.
The council took a tortuous path to its decision, voting four times on varying versions and aspects of the resolutions.
The council finally voted unanimously to delete any reference to the bypass after it became clear that the black members - the Rev. Joseph Green, Paul Riddick and Herbert Collins - would not accept a compromise that deleted a verbal reference to the bypass but left in a map that showed the bypass.
The vote demonstrated the growing power of the council's black members, whose numbers have grown under the ward system that began in 1992. It also showed council members' willingness to bend to avoid polarizing the council or the city along racial lines.
During the meeting, the Rev. Peter Wherry of Queen Street Baptist Church, who led the opposition by the residents, vowed that the community would oppose the planned MacArthur Center mall as well as other city projects if the council did not delete references to the bypass.
``Why should we support construction of the multimillion-dollar MacArthur Center?'' Wherry said. ``We had hoped it would bring jobs, but the council's track record suggest we have little to hope for.''
The bypass in question has not been funded. It is simply a line on the city's master transportation map. Its deletion Wednesday was largely symbolic. The true fight will occur if and when it comes up for funding and insertion in the city's capital improvement plan.
Mayor Paul Fraim, in an interview afterward, said it wasn't worth alienating and polarizing the city for a vote that did not have concrete significance.
``I did not want to make this vote a vote on the need for a downtown bypass,'' Fraim said.
Wherry vowed to fight on. Any such bypass, Wherry said, would be a haven for drug dealers and trash. It would also physically divide the Brambleton Avenue community.
``We will be ever vigilant,'' Wherry said. ``The entire snake has to die.''
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL BYPASS NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY by CNB