THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 15, 1996 TAG: 9603150481
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EDENTON LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
For years, North Carolina and Virginia road-builders have planned connecting highways so their roads would come together at the right place and with the same width when they join at the states' shared border.
But for a politically prickly decade, U.S. 17 has narrowed from four lanes at the North Carolina state line to two bumpy lanes along Virginia's Dismal Swamp Canal road into Norfolk, Chesapeake and Portsmouth. Many commuters dread the drive through often heavy traffic along that canal bank.
In an unexpected move Thursday, the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Commission's advisory board decided to tackle the highway bottleneck.
``We're going to work with Virginia business leaders in a joint effort to benefit both our states by widening U.S. 17 north of our border,'' said Ben Berry, a Centura Bank senior executive in Elizabeth City. Berry is chairman of the development commission's advisory board that screens projects for the Albemarle area's pump-priming panel.
U.S. 17 has been a road to contention that not many years ago caused North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. to have a public dispute with a then-Virginia Gov. Charles Robb almost in the middle of the highway.
During Hunt's second term in the early 1980s, Hunt met with Robb, now a U.S. senator, under a tent on the bank of the Dismal Swamp Canal to discuss widening U.S. 17 in Virginia so that the road would match the just-completed four-lane section in North Carolina.
It was not a friendly meeting. Robb appeared to take offense at North Carolina's apparent attempt to tell Virginia where and how to build roads. Since then, U.S. 17 has remained two-laned in Virginia all the way to Tidewater.
Berry said the private move to solve a problem that has caused so many hard feelings would be in line with North Carolina Commerce Secretary Davis Phillips' new policy of ``regionalism'' as a spur to sharing business.
Hundreds of North Carolina residents use U.S. 17 every day to get to jobs in Tidewater. New housing developments in rural northeastern North Carolina are attracting former Virginia residents who still work in the Hampton Roads area.
Berry declined to identify the Virginia business leaders with whom he planned to meet to bring pressure for a wider U.S. 17 in their state.
``We want to talk over our ideas with the commission first,'' Berry said at the advisory committee meeting in the Edenton branch of Centura Bank. The full development commission will meet in the Camden County Senior Center at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Virginia in recent years brought pressure on North Carolina to improve N.C. 168 from the Virginia border north of Moyock to U.S. 158 at Barco in order to speed Virginia summer traffic to the Outer Banks.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is now widening N.C. 168 under an accelerated plan worked out by state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who is president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate.
Instead of widening U.S. 17, Virginia transportation officials prioritized a plan to improve Virginia's portion of 168, which is now a two-lane road south of Great Bridge to the state line.
R.V. Owens III, the Dare County member of the North Carolina Board of Transportation, juggled his priorities to widen N.C. 168. Within two years, drivers will find a multilane highway all the way through Currituck County to the Wright Memorial Bridge to the Outer Banks.
On summer weekends, miles-long bumper-kissing traffic currently crawls along the present two-laned sections of N.C. and Va. 168. ILLUSTRATION: Map
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