
DATE: Thursday, September 4, 1997           TAG: 9709040458

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA AND STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITERS 

                                            LENGTH:  119 lines

4 INJURED IN BRIDGE-TUNNEL CRASH OFFICIALS WILL REVIEW SAFETY WHILE NEW SPAN IS BEING BUILT.

A recent spate of violent collisions on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel continued on Wednesday when a northbound car inexplicably crossed into the southbound lane, narrowly missing one vehicle, and slammed into a pickup truck.

A bridge-tunnel worker and three other people were injured in the collision. The wreck follows one on Saturday that killed five - the bridge-tunnel's deadliest ever - and a fiery crash in June that killed a woman when she collided head-on with a tractor-trailer.

Officials say such crashes will be easier to avoid when the bridge-tunnel's new parallel span is finished in July 1999.

The opening of the span will end head-to-head traffic on the two-lane bridge and reduce the potential for critical and deadly accidents, said James K. Brookshire, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District.

``Eighty to 90 percent of fatal accidents would be eliminated with the four-lane facility,'' Brookshire said. Serious injuries would also be diminished.

Other transportation experts agree that four lanes will improve safety.

Jim Harrison, a facility manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation, was in charge of the James River Bridge when it went from two lanes to four lanes in 1982.

``Now it's much safer,'' Harrison said of the 4-mile bridge between Isle of Wight County and Newport News. ``There are (fewer) problems with passing. . .

Still, Brookshire's estimate of an 80 percent to 90 percent drop in fatalities may be optimistic.

According to VDOT statistics, the number of fatal accidents on the James River Bridge was about halved after the widening. In the five years before the new span opened, nine people were killed in nine crashes. In the five years after the opening, five were killed in four crashes.

Wednesday's accident on the bridge-tunnel happened just before 4 p.m. The 1990 1 1/2-ton pickup was one of two bridge-tunnel district vehicles heading south at the 16-mile marker, just south of Cape Charles.

The driver of the first vehicle noticed a northbound car coming across the center line, ``so he went to the right,'' narrowly avoiding an accident, Lorraine Smith, a spokeswoman for the bridge-tunnel district, said.

But there was no place for the pickup, which was following the first vehicle, to go.

The driver, identified as Wayne Selby, 44, was flown to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital by the Nightingale helicopter ambulance. He was listed in serious condition Wednesday night and going into surgery.

A passenger, Matthew Moore, 28, was taken to Virginia Beach General Hospital and was listed in good condition. Both men live on the Eastern Shore, Smith said.

The driver of the northbound car, a 1991 Chevrolet Lumina, was identified as Valeri Gorbachev, 53, of Brooklyn, N.Y. He and his wife, Victoria Gorbachev, 50, suffered minor injuries and also were being treated at Virginia Beach General.

The accident was still under investigation late Wednesday. No charges had been filed.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel officials are keenly aware of the safety problems. In the past five years, 20 people have been killed in nine accidents. Many of those were head-on collisions, either from improper passing or cars drifting over the center line.

But no patterns have emerged, Brookshire said, other than driver error.

Saturday's fatal crash occurred when a car sailed over the guardrail into the Chesapeake Bay in a failed attempt to pass. It clipped two other cars and struck a guardrail before it went airborne. The accident marked the first time a car went off the bridge-tunnel since it opened in 1964.

The June 24 accident occurred when a woman veered into on-coming traffic and collided with the tractor-trailer while trying to elude a police officer.

``We know we've got a problem,'' Brookshire said. ``That's what the new crossing will hopefully rectify.''

Until it opens, though, the problem will persist.

Officials have studied lowering the speed limit and outlawing passing but determined they would contribute to the problem instead of alleviate it.

``Engineers have said it would only create other problems,'' Brookshire said. ``There would be driver frustration, tail-gating, horn-blowing and illegal passing. There's a multitude of things the engineers felt it could create, creating a more unsafe condition.''

Brookshire, however, said on Wednesday that speed and passing zones will be considered again due to the attention the latest crash generated.

The two main reasons for building a second, 17-mile bridge, at $200 million, are improving safety and accommodating future traffic growth.

The new bridge will improve safety by separating northbound and southbound traffic, but will also include shoulders and emergency pull-off areas.

The current bridge's design provides no margin for error, with no shoulders and no pull-offs.

The new span is wider - 36 feet from curb to curb, as opposed to the current 28 feet. Pull-offs will be added to the old span during its renovation.

The new span will also distribute increasing traffic better, Brookshire said.

Traffic on the bridge is increasing 2 percent to 3 percent annually. From 1986 to 1996, traffic volumes grew 23 percent, from 2.2 million vehicles a year to 2.7 million vehicles a year.

In August, the highest traffic volumes ever were posted on the bridge-tunnel, with a 4 percent increase - to 374,900 vehicles - over last August.

Construction of the new span is now 55 percent to 60 percent complete.

The section from the north toll plaza to Fishermans Island on the Eastern Shore opened in mid-July. The next section, from Fishermans Island to the northern tunnel, will open in March 1998. The stretch from Virginia Beach to the southern tunnel will open next spring. And the section between the two tunnels will open in the summer of 1998.

Rehabilitation of the original structure will continue through July 1999.

The second bridge project will not cause an increase in the bridge-tunnel's $10 toll. ILLUSTRATION: FACT

FIVE PEOPLE DIED IN A CRASH ON THE BRIDGE-TUNNEL ON SATURDAY, AND A

WOMAN DIED IN A FIERY CRASH IN JUNE.

CHESAPEAKE BAY BRIDGE-TUNNEL ACCIDENTS

VP GRAPHIC

[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]

SOURCE: Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC INJURIES CHESAPEAKE BAY BRIDGE

TUNNEL