THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502240005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Local lawmakers recently suggested that a 55-mile loop of I-64 and I-664 be named Hampton Roads Beltway.
It would be an odd beltway in that more of Hampton Roads would be outside it than inside it. Still, the loop would at least touch the seven major Hampton Roads cities. And more important, it would be a vast improvement over the current nonsensical system of numbers and signs.
As things stand, motorists following the East I-64 signs question their sanity as the sunset glares into their eyes. And driving down West I-64 into a sunrise hardly heals the mind. We are trying to apply directions like east and west to a circle. It can't be done.
With a beltway, you have only two directions: clockwise and counterclockwise. North, south, east, west - all become meaningless.
Beltway signs for going clockwise could be purple, and signs for going counterclockwise could be yellow. Those are pretty colors.
To someone about to visit for the first time, you might say, ``Take I-64 to the Beltway and follow it clockwise - those are the purple signs - till you get to. . . .''
Granted, some people with digital watches and clocks don't think in terms of clockwise and counterclockwise, and many people are colorblind. So the beltway signs might require some tinkering, but that's fine. We can't possibly make matters worse. Who hasn't been lost in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake?
While we're in the renaming business, we should rename, and also renumber, the Norfolk-Virginia Beach Expressway, which is I-264 in Norfolk and I-44 in Virginia Beach. The name is too long and too hard to remember, and a single number should suffice for a straight road.
Given our dependence on tourists, we suggest assigning the expressway a friendly name easily memorized, something like Bob's Route Home. To avoid offending Norfolk or Virginia Beach, we suggest assigning Bob's Route Home the number 154. That is the average of 264 and 44. It is no closer to one city's expressway number than the other.
See how simple things are getting. ``From the Beach, you take Bob's Route Home to the Beltway and follow the counterclockwise signs, the yellow ones, across the bridge-tunnel to join I-64.''
Some say that having our beltway actually called a beltway will unite Hampton Roads. Dream on. Just sharing a belt won't put us all in the same pair of pants. But at least we'll be less lost. by CNB