THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200074
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: 107 lines
Richard Lawrence wants state officials to add bicycle rails to the bridge. Sherman Gard thinks there ought to be a boat ramp at one end. And Sheila Payne asked transportation workers to install a stoplight in Manns Harbor.
About 20 people commented Tuesday night on Department of Transportation plans for a new four-lane span that will connect Roanoke Island to the Dare County mainland.
But none of the 160 people at the public hearing opposed the additional bridge - or its proposed route across the Croatan Sound.
``This new span will be 5.3 miles long and 65 feet high,'' Department of Transportation spokesman Carl Goode told the audience at Manteo Middle School's auditorium. ``It will include four 12-foot lanes with paved shoulders and a center turn lane through Manns Harbor. The estimated cost is $137 million.''
Work on the bridge is expected to begin in about a year. It is scheduled to be completed by the turn of the century. The existing span, which was built in 1955, is 2.7miles long, 45 feet high and two lanes wide.
Once the new bridge opens, drivers approaching the Outer Banks from Raleigh will be able to bypass Manteo completely.
The new span will route traffic from the T-intersection where U.S. 64 joins U.S. 264 in Manns Harbor to just south of Manteo at the Midway Intersection, where the road to Wanchese branches off.
Motorists coming onto the barrier islands from Manns Harbor will get a straight shot across the Croatan Sound to the base of the Washington Baum Bridge to Nags Head.
Summer traffic will decrease in downtown Manteo because most people won't be passing through there on their way to the mainland. Some merchants worry that the new route will hurt their business as motorists are routed away from Manteo's shops, restaurants and hotels. But most business owners agreed that the new bridge will be better than adding two new lanes to the main drag through the waterfront town.
Two weeks ago, Manteo merchants severely criticized a separate plan that called for eventually installing a flyover lane at the west side of the bridge over Roanoke Sound. Goode said the flyover ``is not part of this project. There's no flyover here,'' he said, pointing to wall-sized maps of the new bridge route.
Plans do call for leaving the current Manns Harbor bridge in place. There are about 20 years of life left in that span, Goode said. So some transportation planners think truck traffic could be directed off the current bridge, onto the new bridge - and motorists would have the option of driving either around Manteo or through it.
While traffic is projected to decrease in Manteo once the new bridge opens, some mainland residents worry back-ups will increase in their isolated communities.
``We need a stoplight at that new intersection you're talking about in Manns Harbor,'' said Payne, a Stumpy Point resident who commutes to the beach through Manns Harbor. ``Traffic's going to have to stop at 264 anyway when they put that new bridge terminus in. Those folks are going to need a light.''
Gard agreed. ``I'd like to invite you down on Memorial Day weekend to try to turn onto that road,'' the Manns Harbor resident said. ``We can't even get out of our driveways there now on Friday and Saturday afternoons.''
In 1994, Goode said, an average of 3,700 vehicles drove through Manns Harbor every day. By 2020, transportation projections show that 7,700 cars will be going through the tiny fishing village. Manteo traffic counts will rise from an average, year-round daily of 13,000 vehicles to a projected 26,600 cars per day. The bridge and connecting highway are an integral part of a statewide project to four-lane the 200 miles of highway between Raleigh and the Outer Banks.
Besides expediting visitors' travel to and from the Outer Banks, the new bridge also should help during emergency evacuations, Goode said.
Manteo car dealer Dock Sawyer, however, said he didn't think the expenditure of $135 million was worth saving a few minutes of time during evacuations.
Other speakers urged engineers to design the bridge so that it will have a minimal impact on the environment - especially on valuable rockfish populations that seem to swarm around the current bridge's base.
Drainage was another concern of Manns Harbor residents, who worried about water pooling on their land at the mainland base of the bridge. And one Manns Harbor man urged transportation officials not to raise the speed limit above 35 mph on the mainland because ``all our young 'uns are out in the summer, walking along the street, hanging out at our one store.''
To build the new bridge, highway officials will have to buy and bulldoze two residential homes - one in Manns Harbor and one in Manteo. Two vacant buildings near the bridge's ends also will have to be removed. And 14 acres of wetlands will have to be disturbed in and around the Croatan Sound.
In response to audience comments, Goode said bicycle railings are not included in the bridge plans because engineers ``did not want to limit drivers' views of the sound from the bridge.'' Lawrence said safety for cyclists should trump concerns about seeing scenery. Bicyclist Bill Brodst agreed.
``A lot of cyclists like to use that bridge,'' Brodst said at the hearing. ``There are strong crosswinds and high truck traffic out there already. If that railing is not built at a safe height on the new bridge, the enticing view tourists will have will be of a bicyclist struggling in the water after he goes off the span.''
FASTFAX:
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is accepting comments about plans for a new bridge between Roanoke Island and Manns Harbor.
The new span is scheduled to be four lanes wide and cross the Croatan Sound between the junction of U.S. 64/264 in Manns Harbor and the midway intersection on Roanoke Island, near the junction of Route 345 to Wanchese - so motorists traveling between Nags Head and the Dare County mainland will be able to bypass Manteo on the new span. The existing span at the north end of Roanoke Island is scheduled to stay in place. A flyover in Manteo is not part of this plan.
Comments will be accepted through February. For more information, call Department of Transportation Public Hearing Officer Carl Goode at (919) 250-4092 or write him at P.O. Box 25201, Raleigh, N.C. 27611.