THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010634
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL AND SHAWN M. TERRY, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
Just after midnight, 27 years of history and highway money making came to an end when loudspeakers announced to Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway's toll takers: ``Shut your red lights on. Close down the toll. Thank you. Good night.''
Motorists in line and a small audience that had gathered on the side of the toll plaza cheered, horns honked and workers immediately placed flourescent orange plastic bags over the coin machines and over the lights that for so long had given motorists the go ahead signal.
John Corbitt, an artist for The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, was the last to have to pay a toll, having carefully calculated his travel time to be part of the moment.
``It's cool,'' Corbitt said. ``I've been waiting for this day. I waited exactly 8.5 minutes, and I pulled it off.''
The first people to travel the new freeway were Steven and Scott Konikoff.
The father and son said they left their Norfolk home at 11:33 p.m. and headed toward the plaza.
``I was sitting in my living room watching TV when I heard about it,'' said Steven Konikoff, 45, leaning out the window of his blue Mercedes sedan. ``I remember I was one of the first to pay the tolls back when it opened.''
``We drove here purposely,'' Scott, 18, added, as they drove off. ``We're on our way home. Our mission is complete.''
Even before midnight, many motorists were surprised to find they didn't need to pay toll collector Velma Green.
``Q-94.9 FM is paying your toll tonight,'' Green, who turned 27 at midnight, told them.
The radio station and Phillips Waterside restaurant had provided rolls of quarters to pay the way for motorists using one of the expressway's lanes.
Amid the loud honking of horns and cheering, some of the last toll payers thanked the attendants by giving them red, yellow and pink carnations - and, occassionally, tips.
``One driver was looking for a quarter and couldn't find it,'' said Sheena Saunders, 21, ``then he pulled out a $20 bill, handed it to me and then discovered he had a quarter.''
Saunders said the motorist gave her the 25 cents and told her ``to go buy a sandwich during your lunch break'' with the $20.
But not everyone was giving up their money.
At about 11 p.m., one man drove through the toll plaza, stopped briefly at the booth, then drove on without paying. Five state troopers resting on a nearby railing, smiled and just watched the scofflaw leave.
During the evening, many motorists were performing what collectors call ``the air toll,'' going through the motions but not tossing any coins into the hoppers.
And Jerry Hall, a manager of the company that owns the automatic toll machines, said Wednesday was one of the worst days he'd ever seen for abuse at the exits.
Four of the machines had been jammed with chewing gum and rags, he said. About 7:30 p.m. Hall was at the Witchduck Road interchange unjamming yet another of the automatic coin collectors.
Hall, a regional manager for Cubic Toll Systems, the New York-based company that leased the machines to the expressway, was prosaic about the loss of business in Hampton Roads.
``We're the largest toll company in the world,'' he said, ``We have 6,000 lanes of tolls and over 80 percent of all interstates in the United States. There's always a need for tolls.''
At 12:29 a.m., a silver Mazda sports car pulled into Lane 1 and the driver handed a dollar bill to a dark and empty toll booth.
``No, No, No,'' said a nearby plaza employee. ``No toll. Go home.''
The man cast a confused glance at the worker, pulled his arm back into the car and quickly drove off.
The tolls were ordered off as of today after a game of political one-up-manship which began more than a year ago.
The commute on the toll road linking Norfolk with with its resort neighbor was free for the first time.
The toll road first opened on Dec. 1, 1967, at an original cost of $34 million. At that time, the 12.1 mile road was seen as blessing by most commuters, whose driving time from Norfolk to Virginia Beach was cut in half.
In the road's first full year of operation, 10 million vehicles paid their tolls. By 1993, 62 million a year were passing through the toll plazas.
All in all, more than a billion vehicles have used the road, paying more than $195,781,696 in tolls through April 1995, according to state figures.
The toll road's transition to freeway was to be quick and - all involved hope - painless.
State transportation officials said that it would take about 2 weeks to remove the toll equipment and plaza canopy. Crews were to work 24-hours-a-day to bring the road back to normal.
The work began immediately after the tolls ended, when construction crews started removing toll equipment from blocked off center lanes and covering toll equipment in the eight active lanes.
The construction should be finished by Nov. 1, according to R.W. McLendon, assistant resident engineer for the state. The toughest part of the process will involve re-grading the highway around the current toll plaza, eliminating a 6- to 8-foot crest that had served to make the toll booths more visible to motorists.
The 26 automatic coin collectors at five different exits will be removed as well. Their electricity was cut off this morning.
While the plaza is being torn down, state police plan to heavily enforce the 40-mph speed limit in the work zone. In addition to the two to three troopers that normally patrol the route, an extra eight troopers will be stationed around the toll plaza to make sure traffic flows smoothly and safely.
Violators could be fined as much as $250 plus court costs for speeding in the work zone.
Despite an increased presence, State Police First Sgt. Roger Farr said Wednesday that he is certain there will be an increase in accidents as a result of the construction and inattentive driving.
Gov. George F. Allen is expected to hold a press conference this morning at the toll plaza, where he is scheduled to pull one of the ``Stop Pay Toll'' signs from the plaza and toss it into the back of a pickup truck.
Allen was the last Virginia politician to get involved in ending the toll. In March, Allen asked the General Assembly to move up the effective date of the toll's removal from the Fourth of July weekend to June 1. Allen said he wanted the earlier date to avoid traffic congestion during the holiday.
The Republican governor's proposal amended a bill by Democratic Sen. Clarence A. Holland of Virginia Beach, who sponsored legislation that would have removed the tolls on July 1. In doing so, state Republicans won back some credit for killing the tolls.
A year earlier, Democrats, including Sen. Holland, killed a GOP-sponsored bill to remove the tolls by Jan. 1 of this year.
The road had paid for itself and then some. Most of the excess money was being used for road maintenance as well as major construction projects along its length.
Last June, the road had $32 million in its trust fund and just $6 million left to pay its debt. And because politicians in 1967 said that the toll would be removed once the road was paid for, today's legislators latched on to the issue.
Behind the toll plaza headquarters, state transportation employees pushed cart after cart of now worthless toll tickets into the basement of the toll plaza, where they will eventually be destroyed. Motorists bought equally worthless toll tokens, more for keepsakes than currency. MEMO: This story appeared in the Replate Edition of the Virginian Pilot ILLUSTRATION: Black & White staff file photo by Bill Abourjilie
December 1, 1967: Then-Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. led the
ribbon-cutting to open the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway.
Color staff photo by Christopher Reddick
June 1, 1995: John Corbitt of Virginia Beach was the last person to
pay the 25-cents expressway toll.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH-NORFOLK EXPRESSWAY TOLLS by CNB