THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 4, 1995 TAG: 9504040322
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
State Transportation Board members are expected to approve a $6.6 million contract Friday to widen two-lane Route 168 from the Virginia border toward the Outer Banks.
But while paving will begin next month in North Carolina to eliminate the summertime bottleneck that often creates a honking line of vacationers from Great Bridge to Barco, no comparable widening of Route 168 in Virginia is expected in the near future, a Virginia highway official said Monday.
Thus another heavily traveled highway to southeastern Virginia will end in a narrower Virginia road at the North Carolina border. For years, four lanes of N.C.-U.S. 17 have squeezed down to two bumpy lanes in Virginia at the state line 21 miles north of Elizabeth City.
``Design hearings on Va. 168 north of the state line are scheduled for this year along with an environmental review of the wetlands involved,'' Robert Spieldenner, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said Monday in Suffolk.
Spieldenner said the hearings and review processes would not be completed ``until 1996, and maybe later.''
No widening work on Route 168 in Chesapeake can begin until the hearings are completed, he said.
In Raleigh, William Jones, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said contract-letting for N.C. 168 south to Barco, where the road intersects U.S. 158, a five-lane main road to the Outer Banks, will be completed in September and December of this year.
``Work should be finished on all of the $35 million in contracts for N.C. 168 possibly by the end of 1996 and no later than early 1997,'' said Jones.
The contract-letting on Friday will be for 3.6 miles of Route 168 from the Virginia line toward Moyock. Low-bidder for the $6.6 million job is the Barnhill Co., Jones said.
``The road will be five-laned all the way to Barco,'' Jones said, ``with the center lane used for turning purposes.''
The new likelihood of delays in Virginia in widening of both U.S. 17 and Va. 168 developed Monday after a dialogue between Pasquotank County Commissioners meeting in Elizabeth City and D.R. ``Don'' Conner, N.C. DOT division engineer in Ahoskie.
``Anything new about U.S. 17?'' asked Commissioner Chairman Zee B. Lamb when Conner showed up to discuss secondary road paving plans for Pasquotank County.
Hundreds of Albemarle residents commute daily to jobs in southeastern Virginia, and Albemarle officials have pressured their Virginia counterparts for years to widen the highway to facilitate commuting at the state line bottleneck. The N.C. DOT finished the four lanes of U.S. 17 to the Virginia border several years ago.
``Now we're hearing that Virginia plans to shift all of Virginia's U.S. 17 priorities to Va. 168 from Great Bridge to the North Carolina line in Currituck County,'' Conner told Lamb.
But in Suffolk Spieldenner said that was unlikely.
``So far we only intend to widen 1.2 miles of U.S. 17 from the state line north,'' said Spieldenner. ``Work on that should begin this year.''
But Spieldenner said there was no further funding in sight for Route 17 that would widen an additional 10 miles of the highway to the intersection with Va. 104, a heavily traveled artery that carries North Carolina commuters into downtown Norfolk via the broad lanes of Route 464.
Spieldenner said there was no way funds could be shifted from Route 17 to the Va. 168 widening project in Chesapeake because, except for the environmental studies, there were as yet no existing appropriations for either widening project beyond the 1.2-miles of Route 17 north of the Virginia border.
Meanwhile, members of the Chesapeake City Council and the Dare County Board of Commissioners plan to meet late this month to see how the delays in widening Route 168 can be overcome. Currituck County officials also are expected to attend.
KEYWORDS: ROAD CONSTRUCTION by CNB