Tunnel Vision: Motoring Through the Wilderness

By Brendan O'Hallarn Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Have you ever flown up the Eastern Seaboard after dark? It’s truly amazing. The twinkle of lights is continuous from just north of Richmond all the way to Boston. There is literally no wilderness visible from the air.

It’s what makes our stretch of “wilderness” between Williamsburg and Richmond pretty unique.

I drive to Norfolk four days a week from Williamsburg, and once you get past the submarine base in Yorktown it’s solid city until I reach my job. Newport News becomes Hampton, becomes a traffic jam on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, becomes Norfolk or Virginia Beach.

For the past five days, however, I’ve made the drive the other way, to attend the CAA Basketball Tournament. Considering how much this region has grown, it’s fairly amazing that after you get past the Croaker-Norge turnoff, there’s essentially nothing but a horse racing track and a pair of rest stops until you cross the Chickahominy River 25 miles later. I’ve actually seen a black bear on Interstate 64.

My dad commented how rustic and rural the drive seemed, with the fields, streams and evergreen trees reminding him of Eastern Ontario, where he grew up.

As Tunnel Vision readers know, I get flustered from time to time at traffic delays in my commute. I think expanding choke points at some key arteries, such as providing another crossing from the Peninsula to south Hampton Roads, can help with traffic flow.

What you will never find me doing in this space is advocating for a third lane of traffic each way between Newport News and Richmond.

It’s true, when someone plays pinball with their car at the Fort Eustis exit it means a lengthy delay in one direction or the other. When all of Northern Virginia (or so it seems) is trying to get to the Outer Banks, it can make the four-lane portion of I-64 a mess. But if the spiderweb of freeways around large centers like Los Angeles has taught us anything, it’s that more road construction equals more cars.

Do we want to see yet another  stand of tall pines leveled to build a strip mall-type development with one busy grocery store and a bunch of empty store fronts? The fastest way to facilitate that is to widen the highway leading to it.

I like the deserted stretch between Williamsburg and Richmond. Remind me of this if I ever run out of gas there, but it’s serene to make that drive, looking left and right for scenery along the way. Plenty of city driving awaits you in only a few miles in either direction. I enjoy seeming like I’m out of the rat race, even though I’m still jostling with trucks and speeding cars on the always-busy Interstate 64.

Brendan O’Hallarn writes Tunnel Vision for WYDaily, while he fights the Tunnel traffic on the way to Old Dominion University. Got a story from the road? Share it here, or write Brendan personally, at brendan@wydaily.com.