THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170329
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 71 lines
By next spring, you'll no longer be driving east or west on Interstates 64 and 664, but on the inner or outer loops of the Hampton Roads Beltway.
While the state's second beltway won't carry the ``political insider'' label like the one encircling Washington, it will carry motorists to their destinations in a less confusing way.
Today, on some sections of Interstate 64, you could be driving west into the sunset, but the interstate signs will tell you you're going east. And vice versa.
Under the beltway system, the inner loop travels clockwise and the outer loop moves counter-clockwise in a circular pattern on 55 miles of Interstates 64 and 664. No more west when you want east, and east when you want west.
The new beltway touches six of the region's seven cities and includes both the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
Hampton Roads Beltway signs, using a logo selected Wednesday by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, will be installed by next spring along the interstates. They will be accompanied by an educational program to get residents familiar with the new name.
After two divided votes Wednesday, the commissioners approved a bull's-eye logo that features a sun and ocean in the center. It was selected because the concentric circles convey the beltway design and because of its similarity to the logo for the Washington beltway.
The alternative logo - a rectangular design that features a road, the water and the sun - received some support because it's easier to read and it actually pictures a road.
``What we're trying to do is let everyone understand there's a ring around Hampton Roads,'' said Arthur L. Collins, Planning District Commission director.
Jane S. Wimbush, Virginia Department of Transportation construction engineer, said the beltway concept will help people understand how Interstates 664 and 64 tie together.
``664 will no longer seem like an interstate that's far out there and that does not connect to Hampton Roads,'' Wimbush said.
In addition to correcting the directional confusion, officials hope the beltway designation will help unite Hampton Roads as an identifiable region.
``A lot of people are confused about what Hampton Roads is,'' said William J. Cannell, VDOT spokesman. ``The Hampton Roads Beltway will give a little more identity to the area.''
The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved the beltway designation in April. Now that the logo has been approved, signs will be manufactured and installed in the next four months at a cost of $13,000.
As part of the beltway concept, there is a proposal to renumber the interstates in Hampton Roads for more uniformity. But the proposal was tabled this summer by the Commonwealth Transportation Board because it was too politically charged.
The transportation board had four options. But none was acceptable to all South Hampton Roads cities. So the board agreed to put off the decision and work with the cities on the proposal.
A consultant offered four choices for renumbering Interstates 64 and 664, and the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway, to encourage motorists heading to the Virginia Beach Oceanfront or to North Carolina's Outer Banks to bypass the chronically congested Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. ILLUSTRATION: Map
VP
Drawing
The signs to mark the road feature a sun and ocean in the center of
concentric circles.
A similar design marks the route of the Washington, D.C., beltway. by CNB