ShawnD

Good thing I never go that way

bonestock94

Oh man, those are like NYC toll prices. Except you at least get to to live in a great place for the money you pay. Luckily....

Axelerate

Fuck the tunnel. Bring back the ferries, got to be faster.


They need to just stop closing one lane every damn night to just change light bulbs.


I like the idea of making a third crossing from MM to Norfolk. That way we would have another choice and wouldnt have to pay a toll unless it was neccesary.

marlinspike

Florida is just different. Our traffic would go a lot more quickly too if we had cops who didn't mind it when you did 90mph on the interstate.

As someone who makes a rush hour commute across the HRBT every day (Williamsburg to Norfolk), I can offer this:

The HRBT isn't really that bad usually. Yes, you're stop and go for a while, and it feels like forever, but if you actually time it its ~ 10-15 minutes to cover 3 miles, which isn't that terrible. I wouldn't pay $4 to get rid of a delay that small.

On Fridays, the HRBT does get overrun, but VDOT exaccerbates this by closing the 15th view on ramp. Their thinking is "we're putting one less merge area on 64 during rush hour, which should make it faster." This thinking is wrong, because what happens instead is everybody is trying to use 4th view, meaning 4th view gets hit from 3 directions, and it just can't handle that, not with a one lane on ramp, and not with all the traffic lights. VDOT could, for $0, significantly alleviate the Friday traffic simply by not closing the 15th view on ramp during rush hour. There was actually a period last year when the gate was broken and it was left open. For that 1.5 week period traffic was MUCH less of an issue.

You don't need more lanes making the same crossing as the MM and the HRBT. The HRBT traffic would be non-existant if people would actually use the MM. Nobody uses the MM because the midtown tunnel sucks. If they want to spend money, they need to expand the midtown tunnel (or just give a new way to get off the MM going into Norfolk). Between the MM and the HRBT there is plenty of road, it's just the choke point of the midtown tunnel screwing it up.

burnoutboy

After driving through Richmond on the way down to LudaChrisVTs to get my civic I am completely convinced the powhite parkway got it's name from making my ass a powhite boy after driving down it. Fucking tolls every 2 minutes it seems like!

CBR600F4

Again I'll state; 2 lanes ONLY from 564 all the way to the tunnel; where are you gonna put the tolls?

It will be just like NYC as stated by someone earlier; sure, they have their equivilant(sp?) of EZ Pass, but you're STILL waiting to go through in most areas.

And check out 13 heading north, you have to come to a complete stop and then it raises the gate....so the only time you're saving is not paying/getting change. I've never seen some shit like that in any other state.........if you have a prepaid dealy you roll on through.............


The MM is ok; but it's out of the fucking way for most; and adds a few miles to the trip.


IMHO they should just add a completely new tunnel to the HRBT so they don't have to dick with the existing set up as it's being built. Then once it's linked up they need to expand the existing 2 lanes to 4 before and after it.

Again; the only state I know of where fucking highways only have 2 lanes in multiple places.



***EDIT***
As to the tax comments; I agree that we pay too much (in the military but became a resident back in 96; no more expensive than Mass was)..............but how many people live here and DON'T pay state taxes?

Think about it..........................

RandomTask

1.) I'm for a toll, perhaps up to $3. However, more than that is BS. VDOT has all this money in their coffers yet somehow they need more for the tunnel?
2.) I know skanska put in a bid for building an HRBT at 1.2 billion about a year ago; Dunno the huge disparity between the prices.
3.) Any plan they have for making a bigger tunnel absolutely must have rail. They would have to be absolutely retarded to build more lanes for vehicles and negate a line for a rail.

marlinspike

The MMBT being out of the way is the military's fault...so you take the blame.

Speaking of which, this is a matter of national security (national security is the reason why we have to have the tunnels, and a lot of the traffic is .mil), so why can't the army build it? It'd be a lot cheaper than paying someone who is trying to make a profit, and the end result would prob be better.

keefboz

You would really want the ARMY to build something that complex? Have you seen what it takes to become Army Strong?

yanko 15

read what blah said