THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511170744
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
EVERY WEEKDAY MORNING at about 7, Anne D. Clark climbs into her car and gets ready for her daily therapy.
That's what the hour-long drive from her Currituck County home to her Chesapeake job is to Clark. Afternoons, she repeats the ritual in the reverse.
``That is my unwinding time,'' said Clark, a microfilm librarian for the Chesapeake school system. She leaves plenty of time to cruise along at a comfortable 50 miles per hour and stop for coffee. ``That's my time to myself that I relax.
``I'll tell you the truth, I like my commuting time, because it gets me away from phones and people.''
Not everyone who takes to the highways to get to work is as jovial about it as Clark.
But no matter what their attitude about commuting, more and more people are doing it.
Dwight L. Farmer, director of transportation for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, said census figures show that in 1980, 22,500 Chesapeake residents traveled out of the city for work. In 1990, the last year for which figures are available, the number had grown to 39,000, Farmer said.
Virginia Department of Transportation figures, also based on the census, show that as of 1990, at least 53,719 people were traveling to Chesapeake for work, either from their homes in Chesapeake or from other area cities. That doesn't count workers who come into the city from North Carolina.
Experts say they expect to see the numbers of commuters go up even more, particularly as businesses move into the city and make it a more attractive place to work.
Chesapeake's burgeoning residential development also is luring people who work in other cities to buy homes here.
``It's a very desirable place to live,'' said city Planning Director Brent R. Nielson.
Increasingly, people are going it alone. In 1980, 68 percent of Chesapeake commuters reported driving alone; 24 percent rode in car pools and 3 percent used public transportation. In 1990, 79 percent drove by themselves, with only 15 percent riding in car pools and 1 percent using public means.
Experts say that's because people like their cars. And they don't mind making some tradeoffs in their quality of life to spend more time traveling, if it means a better job or home.
``People have enjoyed a tremendous amount of personal freedom in terms of their ability to be mobile,'' said Philip A. Shucet, vice president of the Virginia Beach consulting firm Michael Baker Jr. Inc., which is conducting a detailed, areawide study of travel patterns for the Virginia Department of Transportation. ``As more things become available to travel to, the desire to access them grows.''
Farmer and Shucet say discretionary travel, or the amount of time people spend on the roads for errands, trips or entertainment, is growing even faster than job commuting.
The trouble with the trends is that the demand to drive is outpacing planners' ability to build bigger and better roads.
Motorists see the problem on Interstate 64 at 5 p.m. weekdays; on South Battlefield Boulevard at the swing bridge in the afternoons; and on Dominion Boulevard at the swing bridge almost any time of day. They see it in the traffic snarls that sometimes make travel on area highways and Chesapeake thoroughfares an exercise in stress control.
Travelers say they have various strategies for passing the time while driving.
``I crank up the music as loud as I want to,'' said Robert A. Clifton, 50, who lives in Virginia Beach and commutes to his job as recreation coordinator for Chesapeake's Parks and Recreation Department. ``I'm a rock 'n' roller and I listen to heavier rock than most people my age.''
Clifton has spent his 34-year career with the department. When he first began his job, he lived in South Norfolk about a block from work. Gradually over the years, he's moved farther and farther away. Now he's 23 miles, a half-hour drive, from the office.
``I've never thought about how far I live from work,'' he said. ``I have lived where I lived because of the house I've wanted to live in, not by how close I am to work.''
Janice K. Bowling said she probably would have considered living closer to work, if she had known.
Bowling, 40, had just moved to a new house in Virginia Beach when she landed a job as a teacher and counselor for Southeastern Cooperative Educational Programs in Deep Creek.
After living just four miles from work in Virginia Beach for years before, she wasn't crazy about the idea of longer drive.
``I knew this was the job I should have, but I had to move to a different center to have it,'' she said. ``I was glad to get the job.''
Now she uses her time on the road to get mentally prepared for work in the mornings, and to leave work behind at night.
``In the morning, I wind up,'' she said. ``In the afternoon, I listen to classical music and wind down.''
Clark knows the feeling.
Driving is ``time when nobody can really bother you,'' Clark said.
It's been a way of life for her. As a schoolgirl growing up in Camden County, N.C., she rode an hour and a half to school on the bus each way. Later, she worked in Elizabeth City, N.C., for 13 years, about an hour's commute from her home.
She can't imagine not living in the country. Her home is on a little island in water-surrounded Currituck County, called Bells Island.
``I've got a home on the waterfront, and it's laid back, and it's quiet,'' she said. ``It's worth the drive, because when you go across the bridge at Bells Island, it's like you go into a different world. Everything slows down. It's not the hustle-bustle you get in the big city.''
So she climbs in her car, sips her coffee and cruises.
``I wouldn't trade it,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Color cover photo: Traffic on Dominion Blvd.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Four lanes of traffic, coming at you! On North Battlefield
Boulevard, rush hour traffic is a fact of life.
Robert Clifton commutes from Virginia Beach to his job with
Chesapeake's Parks and Recreation Department.
KEYWORDS: COMMUTING TRAFFIC COMMUTER by CNB