DATE: Wednesday, July 30, 1997              TAG: 9707300513

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   69 lines

TOLL ROAD HEARING IN CHESAPEAKE TODAY MAPS WILL INDICATE WHICH PROPERTIES STAND IN THE WAY.

City residents will get their first detailed look today at where highway planners want to build the Chesapeake Expressway - and detailed maps will show whose property stands in the way.

It will be Chesapeake's most ambitious highway project yet - one of the first roads in Virginia to be financed partly through private money, as well as the city's first toll highway. It will cost $139 million. And it's expected to displace 17 homes.

City and state officials will hold a public hearing today from 4 to 8 p.m. at Hickory High School concerning the new Virginia Route 168, a toll road that will run parallel to Battlefield Boulevard for 16.2 miles. It will form the southern section of what will eventually become the Chesapeake Expressway, which will extend from Interstate 464 in South Norfolk to North Carolina, said civil engineer Robert D. Matkins.

Yet to be decided is the highway's final alignment, or route. And the public hearing will allow people to ask questions and comment on that proposed route and see whose property would be affected by it.

The Chesapeake Expressway will include the new toll road in the south, what is now the Great Bridge Bypass in the central section of the city, and the yet-to-be-built Oak Grove Connector in the northern portion of Chesapeake, Matkins said.

Chesapeake's Public Works Department expects 300 people to attend the informal hearing, department information officer Nancy Schucker said.

The toll road will be a new four-lane, divided highway, said city engineer D. Ray Stout.

``This is the biggest project of this nature we've ever done in the city,'' Stout said. ``Battlefield Boulevard is one of our busiest highways - especially in the summer.''

Battlefield Boulevard, which stretches to North Carolina, becomes congested as summer vacationers travel to the Outer Banks, Stout said. Traffic surges to more than 30,000 vehicles per day - triple the road's capacity - during peak travel months. The road becomes so congested that a 10-mile stretch in the Hickory area is sometimes gridlocked for as many as eight hours a day.

Battlefield Boulevard is also a hurricane evacuation route for the Outer Banks, Stout said. North Carolina has already begun to widen its portion of the road to five lanes.

Chesapeake has created the Chesapeake Expressway Corp. to manage construction, maintenance and financing. City officials expect tolls on the Chesapeake Expressway to be $2 for infrequent users, $1 for occasional users and 50 cents for daily commuters.

Chesapeake's only other toll facility is the Jordan Bridge, Stout said.

Construction of the Chesapeake Expressway is scheduled to begin in 1999 and continue for about two years, Schucker said.

The private builders of the expressway will be PB&J of Virginia, a limited liability company formed from two contractors, Parsons Brinckerhoff Development Co. Inc. and Jones Capital Corp., Schucker said.

Chesapeake's right-of-way agent, William Rice, will begin making compensation offers to families displaced by the expressway after Chesapeake City Council approves the highway's final alignment. The homes in the highway's path will be demolished, Rice said.

``We haven't even contacted these people yet,'' Rice said. ``I dare say that some do, some don't know'' of the planned demolition. ``Anyone who has kept up with the project will be aware of it.'' MEMO: The public hearing will be from 4 to 8 p.m. tonight at Hickory

High School, 1996 Hawk Boulevard. For more information, call the

Chesapeake Public Works Department at 382-6101. KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE EXPRESSWAY ROUTE 168 BATTLEFIELD BOULEVARD

HEARING CONSTRUCTION

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