UPDATE: Both lanes open at I-64 West Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel; still congested
AP Photo/ Steve Earley, The Virginian-Pilot
Traffic backs up on 264 westbound towards the Berkley Bridge and and the downtown tunnel in Norfolk around noon on Thursday.
Published: July 2, 2009
Updated: July 2, 2009
NORFOLK — Both lanes of the westbound tube of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel have reopened.
The Virginia Department of Transportation says westbound traffic was still backed up nine miles after the second lane reopened at 7:38 p.m. Both lanes had been shut down at 6:30 a.m., and one lane was reopened at 2:15 p.m.
VDOT closed the tube after a faulty pump left 4 inches of water on the pavement. The closure caused massive traffic backups throughout the day in the region.
Norfolk Mayor Paul Fram said the problem was a direct result of legislative inaction on transportation funding. He said, “Had this occurred during an evacuation caused by an impending hurricane or major storm, I shudder to think of the consequences.”
VDOT said single lanes will be closed again overnight Thursday and Friday for additional work. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes during those closures, from 9 p.m. until 9 a.m.
—The Associated Press
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Reader Reactions
If people want roads and tunnels that work, it’s time to pay for them out of their own pockets.
That has to be the answer. The tunnels should have tolls just like the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel with the money going strictly for tunnel operation and maintenance. No taxpayer money goes to that operation. That way the users of the tunnels both local and out of town will bear the cost and provide the funding for operating them.
We have built an extensive, complicated bridge heavy road system like the bridges on 895 and the mixing bowl in NVA with no method of paying for the future maintenance on them.
The idea of changing the tax structure to charging for miles driven has merit. Smart Tag and GPS makes this a very feasible method. Let the users pay for them.
Mikeyt, Kaine had 4 years to fix what problem? The broken pump in the HRBT? The only way to provide funds to VDOT now is to raise taxes and most of the voting population in Virginia won’t go for that. You can’t blame what happened on anyone. Making Kaine a scapegoat is just that. If people want raods and tunnels that work, it’s time to pay for them out of their own pockets. Compusa’s post put it perfectly.
For 35 years the politicians you elected have betrayed you, and yet you re-elect them.
They in return, have failed to act responsibility. They have failed to do the hard jobs and make the difficult decisions. They have failed to tell you the truth. Why? Because frankly we as a community are too cowardly to accept the truth.
The truth we cannot accept? There is no free lunch. You want roads? You have to pay for them. How do you pay for a road? With taxes. Yet time and again you tell the politicians no tax increases. And the politicians are all too happy to oblige you. After all it will be thirty or forty years before you figure out you have been betrayed.
The road system did not just fall into the state it is in. We the citizens of this area - Heck Virginia, have fallen for the lie that we can have everything - with out any pain.
Well, no pain, no gain. Only loss.
And lose we shall. First, the war on VDOT will end with even more people employed to work on the roads - at a much higher price. See every person who leaves VDOT must be replaced After all the work must still be done. And consultants are more than happy to do the work- for a price, usually a very big price.
Betcha don’t know what grass cutting costs by contract. Or construction inspection, Or road design. Or how much it costs to repave a mile of road.
Do an FOIA -you’ll be shocked.
Then elect responsible politicians - Like Hunter Andrews. He at least looked out for your roads.
But of course you can whine about the gas tax being too high - and continue to watch congestion build, roads and bridges degenerate as potholes become common place. You can complain and whine about VDOT when things break, and you are inconvienenced by the wait.
VDOT is being strangled because there really is no funding to do anything -and hasn’t been for decades. VDOT has shrunk from nearly 12,000 employees to less than 8,000 employees while thier contracting force has soared in size, and costs.
There really is no money, not even to fix the potholes, Let alone build new roads The last real funding increase was 23 years ago, a one cent rise in the gas tax. There is no business or individual that could continue doing business as usual if the last time they increased prises was 23 years -or even 2 years ago. Yet VDOT plods on, doing the job, year after year, and steadily falling behind.
You neglect the roads and you wind up with the same situation as when you neglect a house - or fail to build new rooms as the family grows. It will one day fall down or be too small for everyone to fit inside.
ziggy… it’s pretty simple. Kaine had four years to fix the problem. A governor is supposed to be someone who comes up with solutions. He didn’t. And it doesn’t matter how the pump broke. It was old, and transportation dollars could have replaced that pump. Kaine didn’t come up with the dollars.
So get over yourself, dunsky. At the end of the day our temp job, do-nothing governor didn’t get the job done.
Be a little more patient and take an alternative route.
You obviously are not familiar with the crossings in Hampton Roads. There was no alternative route! The James River Bridge was shut down because the power lines that parallel the bridge blew down during the storm. The 664 tunnel was backed up 9 miles.
The lame “power outage” caused the pump to fail doesn’t cut it. We have power outages all the time and they don’t trash important items. I would say it’s lack of maintenance and inexcusable when it took VDOT from 9pm to 6:30am to realize the pump was out. The privately owned and operated Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel has a hands on human check all pumps and vital equipment at least 3 times every 8 hours.
How could Kaine care? He’s not even in the state most of the time now. Maybe we should start docking his pay for being absent?
You guys are aware that even if something goes wrong in VA and Kaine is not in the area that there are people below him to handle it right?? I mean really, blaming a broken pump on Kaine is like blaming him if a tree falls in your yard after the same storm. Even if every pump was brand new, does that provide an ironclad guarantee that they won’t break? Nope. Stuff happens and people should know that from their own life experiences by now. Regardless if you like Kaine or not, he is not the almighty and cannot prevent things from going wrong in VA. He can fix them but again the citizens here have to be willing to take on additional taxes to foot the bill for it an no one is.
Roads are being repaired but everyone needs to realize that this is not a process that can happen overnight, not even in four years. There are too many roads in need of repair and it’s going to take years to fix the decades of damage that have been done to them. Be a little more patient and take an alternative route.
I seem to recall Kaine followed through with his promise to try to do something about roads but the Republican legislature pushed back on anything that required the citizens to man up and do the right thing. Infrastruture and its maintenance is not a luxury.If/when a real disaster happens, collapsed tunnel or falling bridge the less evolved legislators who fought against the previous road bills can proudly claim it was the governor’s fault, just like some of the obviously less evovled commentators here.
It’s true, it is due to inaction on transportation, but it is not the Governor’s fault. Blame it on the citizens of Virginia who don’t want to sit in traffic but who also don’t want to pay higher taxes or tolls. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Forget blaming the broken pump on the Governor. We need to find a way to blame it on Iran. That way everyone will be happy with our next war fighting whoever Israel’s latest enemy is. How’s that?
I wonder how many more wars we can put on the National Credit Card before our nation totally collapses. I wonder who wants it to?
Ah, another crybaby and I’m not a liberal, just someone who’s tired of the blame game in politics. A broken pump which resulted from a power failure after a severe thunderstorm somehow gets blamed on Kaine. So please smarticus, explain how Kaine is going to come up with billions of dollars to fix broken pumps that fail when the lights go out and other transportation problems. When trees start growing money? Maybe the fact that the state infrastructure, bridges, roads, etc….are starting to show their age and there is no money to fix it all? How about we raise taxes? Don’t complain if you don’t want to pay for it. This stuff ain’t going to fix itself and stop blaming Kaine for a broken water pump, you sound like a bitter Republican. Grow up.
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