THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702160054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 72 lines
Day and night, tractor trailers rumble by their homes - rattling windows, shaking chandeliers, and tearing up the pavement.
Turlington Road has become a temporary truck detour to keep 18-wheelers off Main Street. Residents say relief can't come soon enough.
``They make our windows rattle,'' said Inez W. Dunlow, who's lived on Turlington Road 52 years. ``When you get this age, you need things to be sort of calm and peaceful as much as you can.''
Transportation officials are working on eliminating the complaints. The solution: the southwest leg of the U.S. Route 58 Bypass.
Work on the $33 million project is scheduled to begin in 1998 and should take two and a half years - partly because twin spans about 800 feet long will have to be built across Lake Kilby, a water reservoir for Portsmouth.
The bypass would stretch 2.7 miles, about a half-mile shorter than the winding Turlington Road to the south of the proposed site.
A public hearing is set for Tuesday to listen to residents' concerns about the project. Transportation officials also must get approval from the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
Turlington Road is an example of country atmosphere gone awry.
Last year, the city designated the two-lane stretch that links Carolina Road, or U.S. Route 13, and U.S. Route 58 as a temporary bypass until the state Department of Transportation could build a permanent connector.
Many of the folks along the road say they moved to the area because of its rural nature.
The increase in traffic has been a constant headache.
James A. Willis, who built on Turlington Road - ``out in the country'' - in 1965, said the ground shakes when trucks go by.
``You couldn't get a bypass quick enough,'' he said. ``We need it right now. Today.''
The trucks continuously roar past, making Willis afraid to go to his mailbox until the way is clear.
``The road is really not wide enough,'' Willis said. ``When two trucks meet, it takes all of the road. There's no place on the side for anyone to be.''
Linda Alexander, who has lived on Turlington Road 28 years, hears pigs squealing when trucks go by, and she said her chandeliers rumble whenever trucks go over the railroad tracks.
Lori Harcum said it's often hard to get out of her driveway because of the heavy truck traffic.
``We sit there forever and forever,'' she said. ``They keep coming and keep coming and keep coming.''
VDOT officials said the bypass will allow Turlington Road to return to its ``country road'' status. And the project should help relieve noise and congestion at each end.
Trucks heading west on Route 58 will enter the bypass by a flyover loop without stopping, said Robert T. Scott Jr., VDOT transportation engineer for location and design. The height of the overpass should cut down on some of the noise that now bothers residents of the nearby Oak Ridge subdivision, he said.
Traffic heading west will continue through the intersection the same as it does now.
The eastern end of the bypass will intersect Carolina Road with a merge lane heading south, relocating access to Byrd and Warren streets.
MacFarland Neblett, Suffolk's resident engineer, hopes residents will be patient.
``We want to build that bypass just as quick as the people who live out there want it,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: PUBLIC HEARING
VDOT will hold a public hearing on the Southwest Bypass at Kilby
Shores Elementary School, 111 Kilby Shores Drive, from 4 to 8 p.m.
Tuesday. For details, call (888) 723-8400.
PROPOSED SOUTHWEST SUFFOLK BYPASS
VP MAP