THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 10, 1995 TAG: 9504100030
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 129 lines
It is never calm in Eric Koszaritz's backyard, a tiny plot of land bordered on two sides by neighbors and blocked in the rear by a 30-foot concrete wall.
Koszaritz lives with his mother and sister in a home adjacent to Interstate 64 near the Indian River Road interchange. Traffic screams by about 20 feet from their backyard. The noise never quits, even late at night, despite the so-called sound wall.
For many people, such walls are both a saving grace and an aesthetic mess. They are something you learn to live with rather than celebrate.
And as more and more road construction meets more and more development in Hampton Roads, sound walls are becoming common neighborhood features. But at what price?
When Koszaritz's family moved to this Framingham neighborhood in 1975 before the sound walls were built, he couldn't sleep. There was no privacy from the road. Nearby homes were burglarized by thieves who escaped onto the interstate. To be heard in their backyards, residents yelled at each other.
The noise decreased after the wall went up six months ago, said Koszaritz, but you can still hear the traffic - an incessant swoosh that most residents liken graciously to the sound of the surf.
Koszaritz has adapted. He has used much of his backyard to build a pool and patio. Someday, he said jokingly, he'll show movies on the wall.
``I guess we decided to make the best of it,'' the 29-year-old said as he smoked a cigarette during a break from taking down a tree, one of the last still standing in his backyard. ``I haven't gotten over the fact that it's there at times. There was a 6-foot fence and trees here before. We had some privacy when the trees were full. But now, it kinda makes you feel like you're living in the Bronx.''
The level of highway noise depends on three factors: traffic volume, traffic speed and the number of trucks. For example, traffic at 65 mph sounds twice as loud as traffic at 30 mph. And one truck at 55 mph sounds as loud as 28 cars at that same speed.
There are many ways to combat this noise. Some planners use buffer zones - undeveloped open spaces that border highways. They are usually created when a highway agency buys land so that future development cannot be built close to the highway.
Noise barriers are the most common, though. Effective noise barriers can cut the loudness of traffic noise in half, according to highway officials. They can be earth mounds or vertical walls made of brick, concrete or metal.
Between 1970 and 1992, the most recent year for which figures are available, Virginia built about 44.1 miles of sound wall at a cost of $48.9 million. That ranked it sixth in the nation in erecting such walls, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Much of the sound wall construction was in Northern Virginia.
Nationwide, sound-wall construction has seen a dramatic increase since 1988, according to the highway administration. The trend is expected to continue.
Sound walls are going up in Newport News, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Hampton. And as the state transportation department proposes road-widening projects and new construction across the region, the need grows for more of these ``highway blinders.''
Developers are another force driving the increase in sound walls. As the region's land supply dwindles, they are building communities on property hard against highways. People who move in soon demand sound walls.
``Noise is a factor in people buying a home,'' said Jack McCambridge, environmental manager for the state Transportation Department. ``When you're purchasing houses or land next to major thoroughfares, you have to think of noise. Unfortunately, not everybody does.''
``I definitely feel that people aren't being given the entire picture when buying property,'' he added, noting that some residents of the Ipswich neighborhood in Virginia Beach told him that they were unaware of the noise from Interstate 64 when they bought their homes. The development was built after the state approved plans for Interstate 64 and was not initially eligible for sound walls.
``People started realizing that something wasn't right,'' McCambridge said. ``So then they start making phone calls to the city trying to find out the answers to the questions.
``When we buy homes, we sometimes have our brains in our heart.''
The road building process complicates matters.
``Because of the way the planning process works, it's possible for a road project to get approved and then sit for a while. Then development comes in and road construction starts after that happens, leaving the development without sound wall protection.''
As a result, many local neighborhoods must go without any protection from the roar of the road.
Residents in the Pocahontas Village neighborhood in Virginia Beach, near Independence Boulevard, have been clamoring for sound walls for years. Transportation Department policy states that sound walls can only be built along an existing road when new construction is planned. Since no new expansions are planned for adjacent Route 44, there is little chance that sound walls will be constructed there.
Other areas of the region are too sparsely populated to warrant the high cost of building sound walls, even though the noise may be intolerable.
Sound walls cost about $1 million per mile, which works out to $20,000 per home in areas where there is enough development for state and federal officials to justify construction.
That leaves many small neighborhoods to endure the noise without walls.
In the Huntersville neighborhood in Suffolk, a tiny community that lies in the shadow of the Suffolk water tower off Interstate 664, the roar from nearby traffic keeps Joe Morrisette off his beloved porch.
The 75-year-old, who built his home in 1949 when I-664 was farm land, lives about 50 yards from the highway.
``It was right peaceful,'' Morrisette said of the past. ``There's no noise on a farm.''
Now, ``at certain times of the day, the noise is terrible,'' he added. ``When that traffic is in full force, you can't hear nothing out there. My God, it's like a rain storm. Motorcycles come through five or six at a time. Man, you can't hear nothing.''
Huntersville, though, will not be getting a sound wall anytime soon. Because the neighborhood is so sparsely populated, state transportation officials said it would not be cost-effective.
Instead, VDOT has begun a $340,000 ``landscaping project'' that will provide ``visual and psychological screening'' for the neighborhood, according to the state's six-year improvement program. A small wall is part of the plan but will not be high enough to reject much noise.
Morrisette has coped by closing all of the blinds on the road-side of his home and keeping the television in his living room on during the day.
``When I get in here,'' he said, ``it doesn't bother me.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Staff
Eric Koszaritz, 29, added a deck and a pool to his yard to make up
for the 30-foot sound wall that borders it. The city built the
barrier to block noise from Interstate 64.
KEYWORDS: SOUND BARRIERS SOUND WALLS INTERSTATE HIGHWAY NOISE by CNB