DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 1997          TAG: 9711190520

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   54 lines

EXPRESSWAY MOVES AHEAD WITH CHANGED ALIGNMENT

The City Council unanimously approved a path for the southern leg of the proposed Chesapeake Expressway, but instructed the city's staff to continue to work with affected residents who might be disappointed by the choice.

Citizens were asked to offer comments last month at a special hearing called after the City Council changed the alignment of the new Route 168 south of the Northwest River to the North Carolina state line.

The vast majority of the 60 residents who attended the Oct. 23 meeting believed that the original alignment, known as the Eastern alignment, would best suit the needs of the landowners.

Vice Mayor John W. Butt, who was away in Seattle on city business, had suggested several of the changes to the road adopted by the City Council in September.

The new road is intended to transport Outer Banks-bound traffic directly to North Carolina, taking it off the parallel and often congested two-lane Battlefield Boulevard.

The public works department recommended - and the council agreed - that Ballahack Road be extended eastward from its current design.

It would then intersect with the new Expressway, about 1,500 feet south of the proposed Northwest River bridge. In the changed alignment adopted by the City Council in September, the intersection would have been further north.

The road project, considered by the city its most important, could have faced multimillion dollar delays had a compromise not been found. Those delays, city officials said, could have set back the highway's completion date by six to nine months.

Had the city tried to change the plan again, said Mary Ann Saunders, assistant to the City Manager, it would have prompted a state hearing and delayed the $125 million project, which is scheduled for completion in the year 2000.

``We need to do what we can to move this process forward,'' Mayor William E. Ward said at the meeting.

Saunders said the city would continue to work with the three or four property owners directly affected by the new expressway in that section of the city.

Many believe the road will also open the southern reaches of the city to commercial and residential development.

Patricia Cockrill, of Norfolk, said the new route could cost her some economic opportunities.

``I stand to lose about 580 feet of (road) frontage,'' said Cockrill, who owns about 40 acres around the proposed intersection of the Expressway and Ballahack Road. ``And I think my property could be viable for some sort of commercial use in the future.''

In an interview after the council vote, Cockrill said she did not have any specific suggestions for changes in the road alignment. But she said she would be willing to sit down with the city and her adjacent neighbors - who spoke out in support of the old alignment - to resolve their differences.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu