
DATE: Saturday, November 1, 1997            TAG: 9711010719

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NIA NGINA MEEKS, staff writer 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  111 lines

SHORE DRIVE: PLAN TO BOOST SAFETY FEWER TREES WILL MEAN A LESS-DANGEROUS ROAD

It was a flash rain. A summer night, 1990. Shore Drive. Tracy Drye was riding in his girlfriend's car, returning home from the Oceanfront.

Slick roads, wet pine needles, curves - it was too much for a small car with a new driver, Jerry Drye said, recalling his son's story. The car crashed into a tree. The driver survived. Tracy died not long after.

His son's story forever paves that stretch of asphalt, along with the memories of dozens of others who lost their lives on Shore Drive. The city is trying to change endings to stories told by people such as Drye.

Nearly two years after the city floated a plan that would have claimed 345 trees to make the road safer, a less drastic solution is now unfolding along the beloved tree-lined road.

In September, crews began clearing the first of 66 trees along the westbound lane - one more will be cleared in the eastbound section next year. Now the construction phase begins, and by Dec. 1, the westbound lanes of Shore Drive will have beefed-up shoulders with grooved asphalt, also known as rumble strips.

The idea is simple: Should a car stray to the shoulder, the rumble strips make the ride bumpy enough to alert drivers to turn their wheels back to the main road.

Crews also will install a total of three miles of guardrail along sections of the road. The rail will appear only in places where ditches or other hazards exist and will not run the length of Shore Drive. The railing will be in a rustic style and should blend into the wooded beauty of the area, said Rich Nettleton, a city traffic engineer overseeing the project.

Come next year, work on the eastbound side will begin. The entire project, which is expected to cost between $1.2 million and $1.3 million, should be complete by May 1998. Everything is on schedule so far, Nettleton said.

The city procured two federally funded grants through the state to make the adjustments along Shore Drive. With the grant money, the city has to foot $30,000 for the project, Nettleton said.

Shirley Drye never thought the city would do anything about that stretch of road. Her family lived just minutes off of Shore Drive for decades.

``I always heard you have to be careful on Shore Drive because there are a lot of accidents,'' she said. ``You often hear the sirens flying up and down the road at night.''

Last year the City Council voted to improve safety along the stretch of road by cutting down trees and placing shoulders on the road where mostly sand and pine needles lay.

The proposal triggered a barrage of angry letters and phone calls from residents who said the plan would destroy the road's unique character and unfairly ``blamed'' the trees for the mistakes of drunken drivers.

A city-commissioned study showed, contrary to popular belief, that of 83 accidents along the corridor between 1991 to 1994, about a third were alcohol-related. More than half happened at night. Speeding was a factor in one in five accidents. But two out of three accidents involved trees.

Fred Adams, chairman of the Chesapeake Bay Group Sierra Club, frets over the loss.

``It's difficult to blame trees for the accidents people create,'' Adams said. ``It seems to be a political response to a problem where the majority of the people in the community will have to suffer in view of the fact that a few people are not acting in a responsible fashion.''

Tree chopping in the name of progress and safety is a concern for many people in Hampton Roads, Adams said. He pointed to the grounds along Interstate 64 between the Indian River Road and Greenbrier exits as an example where few trees now exist. Yet safety should be a primary concern, so long as trees are not unnecessarily destroyed, Adams said.

``If there is something creating a dangerous situation, we do understand,'' he said. ``We're not going to be knuckleheads about this.''

His hope is that the city makes moves to plant replacement trees elsewhere around the city so that people are not totally robbed of the beauty trees afford.

The Dryes hope that the improvements will rob Shore Drive of any future markers left by grieving families such as the little white cross with black letters they left for Tracy.

It will still be dark along the stretch. Estimates for lighting run in the millions of dollars, just as start-up. Then would come thousands of dollars for maintenance.

Jerry Drye thought about that for a minute.

``No,'' he said softly. ``I don't think the costs would be that prohibitive. You can't put a cost on somebody's life.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

Shirley Drye, who lost her son in a 1990 accident, never thought the

city would improve the road.

CHARLIE MEADS/File photo

Last year the City Council voted to improve safety along Shore

Drive. Planting new shrubs and trees is part of the plan, which

also includes cutting down trees and beefing up shoulders with

grooved asphalt, also known as rumble strips.

Graphic

Since 1977, more than 60 people have died and many more have ben

injured in automobile accidents on Shore Drive. Some of the recent

accidents:

July 15, 1997 - A man is killed when the car he is driving runs