One of the projects in the Hampton Roads transportation pipeline is the Southeastern Expressway, a 21-mile freeway that will loop south of the developed areas of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, skirt Stumpy Lake and vast wetlands, and deliver traffic to the Virginia Beach shoreline. The project, which would cost in the vicinity of $2.5 billion (in 2014 dollars), would be paid for through a combination of tolls and public moneys from the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority.
Welcome to the Hampton Roads where political and civic leaders prefer extravagant, mega-project solutions to traffic congestion. This particular monster has received only modest public scrutiny. In his article, “The Creature from Stumpy Lake,” Peter Galuszka provides an overview of the project, touching upon the financial, environmental and land use issues it raises.
Backers justify the project on the grounds that it will provide traffic relief. I’m willing to accept VDOT’s contention in the 2005 draft environmental impact statement that traffic conditions are bad and getting worse. The question is what to do about it. Is investing $2.5 billion in a 21-mile freeway through mostly un-developed land the most cost-effective use of resources? That kind of scratch can buy you a lot of spot road improvements, traffic light synchronization, bus service, van pools and other ride-sharing initiatives — especially if coordinated with the development of balanced, mixed-use villages and communities.
The EIS does offer an “improved no-build” alternative consisting of about 45 spot improvements, and concludes that it would not improve travel conditions as much as the Southeast Expressway would. The improved no-build scenario would reduce the number of hours of travel time per day spent in congested traffic by 46,000, as compared to 58,000 hours per day for the Expressway, yielding only 80 percent of the benefit. But the study does not say how much those spot improvements would cost. Would they cost $500 million, $1 billion, $2.5 billion? We don’t know. The draft does not provide the basis for comparing the financial Return on Investment of the alternatives.
Nor does the EIS examine the potential for using congestion pricing on segments of Interstate 64 and 264 as a way to optimize traffic flows and induce people to change their driving behavior. One more flaw: The EIS neglects to explore the impact of the Southeastern Expressway upon human settlement patterns. How much land would it open up for development? How many houses would be built along the new corridor? What would be the impact of more spread-out development on vehicle miles traveled, and what congestion would it cause to local country roads?
Lots of questions and no answers. Hampton Roads is gearing up to make a huge investment. Local leaders had better make sure they know the answers before commiting to one of the most expensive transportation projects in Virginia history.
