Will Sen. John Miller’s transportation plan gain any traction?
A few week’s back, Sen. John Miller (D-Newport News) proposed in a column in the Daily Press moving container traffic off of I-64 by banning container trucks from the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and constructing a container tunnel from the Norfolk International Terminals (on the east bank of the Elizabeth) to Craney Island (on the west bank — Sen. Webb, you know where that is now, right?).
You might recall that Rep. Thelma Drake (R-VA02) worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to create an eastward expansion of Craney Island, enabling Norfolk to become, potentially, the largest commercial shipping port on the east coast. So, Miller’s proposal of connecting Craney and NIT makes perfect sense.
Miller’s proposal costs only a quarter of the $4B called for a third crossing and would likely make Route 460 the main thoroughfare for shipping — which would assure its expansion; an expansion which is good for several reasons, not the least being hurricane evacuation.
Miller writes:
Moving all containers to Craney Island, or even further west, would allow us to ban all container trucks from the HRBT and require that they use Route 460 in and out of the area. This could lead to I-64 being a tourist corridor and Route 460 being a freight corridor. Removing these trucks from the HRBT would increase the number of cars that could use the tunnel, and it could negate the need for the very expensive third crossing, which, under its present configuration, limits the ability of Craney Island to expand in the future.
Miller is coming up with some great ideas in his first year in the Senate. And this idea is just sound government. Hopefully, other legislators in Hampton Roads will see it the same way. And, hopefully, politics won’t get in the way of good government.
Category: Catch-All
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Around the Virginian blogosphere…
… Or at least around my Virginia blog-family, anyway…….
First off, Senator Miller better first come up with the money to improve US-460 before he proposes sending more traffic down it. US-460 already has about as much traffic as it can handle.
The biggest problem with the tunnels are not truck drivers. The problem is claustrophic ordinary citizens that freeze up when they enter the tunnel. I do not have the explanation for it, but most truck drivers do not seem to have this problem from my experience. My guess is that if they had that problem, they would also have other problems that kept them from driving the truck in the first place.
There is an exception to this. On the west bound side of I-64 at the HRSD, you can not get a 13’6″ empty air ride trailer through the screening (they can clear the tunnel, but for some reason they are turned away ahead of time – I won’t argue with the justification) and some truckers refuse to turn back when told to do so. They are stubborn because they know they can clear 13’6″. When they are finally stopped and turned around at the tunnel entrance, they block up traffic while traffic is stopped to get them turned around.
Tunnel authorities have tried to deal with this problem by putting up prescreening and warning sings ahead of time on Terminal Boulevard. My guess is that the problem is not from freight coming out of the ports. The problem is 13’6″ empty air ride trailers and most of that is not coming from the ports. I think I am correct in stating that none of the container chassises are air ride.
Senator Miller is only trying to strangle commerce and dump his community’s problems in other communities’ streets.
Why should the citizens of Suffolk, Wakefield, and Waverly suffer just because Senator Miller will not support a real solution to the problem?