DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997                TAG: 9704130041

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   79 lines

LASKIN ROAD MERCHANTS OPPOSE LONG-RANGE TRAFFIC PLANS BEACH PLANNERS ARE ALARMED, BUT SAY CHANGES ARE NOT IMMINENT.

Laskin Road merchants are circulating petitions to drum up opposition to long-range city plans that could change existing two-way traffic patterns near the Oceanfront and eliminate on-street parking.

The move has alarmed resort planners, who say they want to assure the business operators and property owners that changes are not imminent and that no state or local funds are available to do it anyway - at least until after 2000.

At a meeting Thursday, members of the Resort Area Advisory Commission agreed to schedule a meeting with the affected shopkeepers and property owners as a way of quelling rumors of impending changes. ``Some of them are pretty wild,'' said commission Chairman C. Cheyney Cole Jr.

``The issue is the (proposed) one-way pairing of Laskin Road and 30th Street,'' Rob Hudome, coordinator of resort activities and projects for the city, told commission members. ``I've talked with some of the merchants down there and there is some misunderstanding. The Laskin Road Merchants Association wants us to discard one of our options, but there is no project - no funds.''

The merchants, meanwhile, are moving ahead with their petition drive and have hired their own architect to draft improvement plans for the business-lined stretch of Laskin Road nearest the Oceanfront.

Sheets of lined paper, bearing a logo with the words ``One Way . . . No Way,'' can be found at lunch counters, boutique entrances or beside service station and florist shop cash registers awaiting the signatures of patrons.

Gary Kimnach, owner of the Beach Amoco station in the 300 block of Laskin Road and opposition leader of the one-way movement, said people are signing up in droves.

``The folks I've talked to at the North End are adamantly opposed to it,'' he said. ``This is the downtown of the Oceanfront and this is where people here shop.''

The petitions first appeared about two weeks ago, said Kimnach, because Laskin Road merchants were fearful that the city was moving ahead with plans to alter the traffic pattern on the eastern three blocks of the street - and doing it without their input.

Kimnach and a group of business operators met Wednesday with chief of staff C. Oral Lambert to discuss the issue and were told ``basically that there was no money and no plans to do it right now,'' Kimnach said later.

To hedge their bets, and possibly hold off future wholesale changes on the street, Kimnach said the business group has retained the services of its own designer.

``We've got an architect to help us set up something we can present to the city,'' said Kimnach. ``Maybe we can give them something that'll appease them.''

In the past year, the city and the state began eyeing a plan that eventually will involve all four miles of Laskin Road - from the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway exit at Great Neck Road to Pacific Avenue - and tie it in with Oceanfront beautification efforts.

The Virginia Department of Transportation has hired a consultant to conduct an environmental study of the entire length of the route, which is making Laskin Road business operators nervous. That kind of move generally precedes design and engineering plans, city and state officials said.

One long-range proposal calls for converting Laskin Road - also known as 31st Street near the Oceanfront - into a one-way, westbound traffic route. It would be paired with 30th Street, which would be converted into a one-way eastbound traffic funnel, beginning at the existing Farm Fresh market.

Another plan calls for leaving Laskin Road traffic patterns as is, but coordinating street improvements with ongoing Oceanfront beautification work.

The only part of Laskin Road for which improvement work is definitely funded - beginning around 2000 - will be the section between Birdneck and First Colonial roads, state and city officials said. The main reason for selecting this portion is because the aging bridge spanning a marshy finger of Linkhorn Bay between the Linlier and Birdneck Point subdivisions must be replaced. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot

Gary Kimnach, owner of Beach Amoco in the 300 block of Laskin Road,

is the leader of a group of merchants fighting the plans of Virginia

Beach that could change the traffic pattern in that area of the

city.

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