Tunnel Vision: Picture Yourself In a Boat, On the River

By Brendan O'Hallarn Wednesday, August 25, 2010

For the commuting drones accustomed to the daily backups at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the news that the Virginia Department of Transportation has launched yet another study to figure out how to alleviate congestion was no doubt met with a shrug.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, VDOT is seeking proposals from consulting engineers on the best way to expand the HRBT, which sees about 90,000 vehicles a day. The study would be the third in the past few years.

None of the proposals have gone beyond the drawing board, because the state lacks the billions of dollars needed to bring them to fruition.

"We can't afford to spend another 10 years and not get something substantially done,” Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, told the Pilot. “The region's transportation system and its citizens are in too much pain on a daily basis now.”

I was thinking of traffic solutions on Friday night.

Last Friday, my wife and I took a cruise with Old Dominion University’s Batten College of Engineering and Technology, sort of a welcome to the school year celebration.

As we waited to board the Spirit of Norfolk, I looked across the water at a large hotel, so close that I could practically hit a golf ball and break a window. It took me a second to orient myself before I realized that was Olde Towne Portsmouth.

Checking my landmarks, I looked left, and sure enough, there was the daily snarl to get into the Downtown Tunnel, another of Norfolk’s escape route choke-points. I couldn’t believe that such a short span of water caused such four-wheeled dismay every day.

Once the cruise began we wolfed down dinner then sprinted up to the observation deck. It was my first time seeing the region from the water. You know what? The name Hampton Roads - created because the various waterways in the region acted as a transportation system in Colonial times – is a pretty good moniker.

Mother Nature has done a much better job transportation planning in this region than the folks who built the roads.

Our boat cruise meandered out past the Norfolk Naval Base, to where the Elizabeth River meets the Chesapeake Bay. I’m pretty sure it was geographically shorter to get there than it would have been on the roads from downtown, and infinitely more pleasant.

I also remembered the first time I was on the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry, and what a nice ride that was.

I can’t help but wonder if creative traffic planners might make better use of what Mother Nature gave us to alleviate some traffic backlogs. Maybe a water taxi service for urban commuters. Or some short-haul ferries.

Even if the average commuting time isn’t shortened (and I think on some routes, it could be) you’ll be able to tell the folks at the office who took a boat to work.

They’ll be the ones with the relaxed smile on their faces.

Brendan O’Hallarn writes Tunnel Vision for WYDaily. If you have a commuting/transportation idea for Brendan, write him at brendan@wydaily.com.