NO TOLL VA-288 to be half built free

NO TOLLVA-288 to be half built - free

The Texas based construction firm Brown & Root last month withdrew its proposal for a construction of a 27km (17ml) toll road on the western fringe of the Richmond area in central Vriginia. B&R was in partnership with Dewberry & Davis a northern VA engineering firm. The two submitted the proposed 4-lane motorway standard road to be built in one hit as a 4-lane facility to go south from an interchange with I-64 in Goochland Co to US-250 going past a $3 billion Morotola chip plant site and other new industries, then bridging the James River and connecting to the existing southern VA-288 at the western end of the Powhite Parkway, a VDOT toll road and a radial to Richmond. The project is the last section of an outer beltway for the Richmond area.

Three factors hurt the project:

• Some local businesses and residents formed a “288 Freeway Group” which lobbied noisily for VA-288 as a free road on the basis that tolls would cause delays

• Motorola has deferred a start on its huge chip plant

• B&R has lost money in Virginia as one of the three shareholders in the troubled Dulles Greenway and has good reason to doubt the seriousness of the state’s commitment to private participation

With the withdrawal of the toll road group and an election coming up this November Governor Allen announced May 5 that the state will build the road for free — about a half of it anyway. Costing an estimated $239m the state will build mostly 2-lanes from the the Powhite to US-250, starting various sections of the single carriageway between 1999 and 2001, long after Allen has left office. The interchange with I-64 and the link to US-250 are unfunded, doubling time to and from the interstate. So as a free road it is of much lower standard.

Virginia’s Republican governor dislikes toll roads despite rhetoric in favor of private sector involvement. Announcing the demise of the toll project and his free substitute he said: “This is a much better way of doing it.” (Contact VDOT pr 804 786 2715, John Fowler Dewberry & Davis 703 849 0404)