THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609110509
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 69 lines
The city has devised a plan to relieve traffic in front of the Oceana Naval Air Station without building too many lanes.
For years, the Navy has asked for improvements to Oceana Boulevard, but lately that work has been stalled by plans for the Southeastern Parkway and Greenbelt, which would directly parallel the boulevard, as close as 22 feet to the east.
To resolve this dilemma, the public works department Tuesday proposed building two ``temporary'' lanes, 15 feet west of the existing Oceana Boulevard. Those lanes would be designed to last seven years - one year longer than it would take to build the Southeastern Parkway.
If the parkway is never built, the temporary lanes could be repaved to bring them up to permanent status, said Ralph A. Smith, public works department director. That would avoid at least $6 million in construction costs over the next two years and will help relieve the air station's traffic crunch long before the parkway could be completed, he said.
Smith will ask the council later this month to sign off on the construction project, which is expected to cost $2 million to $2.5 million.
By 1998, the two new lanes would be added to Oceana Boulevard, the main route to Oceana Naval Air Station. They would be separated from the existing lanes by a 15-foot landscaped median.
The current road was designed to carry 18,000 vehicles per day, but is jammed with about 26,000 per day, Smith said. Traffic will get even worse as the air station's staff grows by 5,000 over the next few years.
But it doesn't make sense to spend the $15 million originally planned for Oceana Boulevard, Smith said, if a four-lane parkway is built nearby. Then, he predicted, traffic on Oceana would fall to 9,000 a day, which could easily be handled by the current road.
The council's only obvious concern with the road proposal was that intersections at Virginia Beach and General Booth boulevards are not scheduled to be completed until 2001, three years after the extra lanes are added. Those intersections are unsafe today, several council members said, and motorists cannot wait five years for relief.
``I hope we can come up with something better than that,'' council member Linwood O. Branch III said.
Smith said he would talk to the state - which is funding those northern and southern segments of roadwork - about pushing up the schedule. He said a new light and left-turn lane would be added to Virginia Beach Boulevard when the city does its work, rather than waiting for the state.
The state plans to improve the General Booth intersection by redirecting Oceana Boulevard along the current path of Prosperity Road, Smith said. The northern part of Oceana Boulevard would be moved to the west, to intersect Virginia Beach Boulevard at First Colonial Road.
In other business Tuesday, the council was told that the Virginia Beach Farmer's Market would be operated out of tents until at least the end of the year.
Two-thirds of the market burned down Aug. 22 in a fire that is being investigated. The market is located at the intersection of Dam Neck and Princess Anne roads.
Agriculture Director Louis E. Cullipher told the council in a policy report Tuesday that he thinks most of the market's operations can be moved into tents on the site through the fall selling season. All of the scheduled special events, including the Country Fair Day, which is part of the Neptune Festival will be held there.
Cullipher said, by year's end he would like the council to decide the market's future: whether it should be closed, reopened on the current site or moved. ILLUSTRATION: Map
Area Shown:
Phase I: Proposed reconfiguration of both ends of Oceana Blvd. by CNB