Virginia

2012/11/29: The Midtown Tunnel In Norfolk VA has had a flood gate at its eastern portal since it opened in 1962. A tide 7 foot above average sea level - just 2 or 3 feet above a normal high tide - is enough to cause the approach roads to be inundated, so flooding is a regular concern.

2012/11/26: Roads & Bridges magazine a supposedly authoritative industry publication has a three page report on construction of the beautiful new high level Norfolk Bridge in South Jordan VA.  Written by two Figg engineers it is a comprehensive account except for one thing.

A traffic engineer not connected with the VA/495 Express Lanes project says the spate of small accidents in the first three days of operation was attributable to weak signage and misleading lane markings.

He emailed us: "For traffic leaving the Springfield Interchange, headed west and north on I-495, the markings incorrectly implied that it was only the left lane (and not the two left lanes) that went to the HOV/Toll lanes. "

2012-11-20: The City of Chesapeake closed this week on nearly $303m of borrowings to finance a major bridge replacement over the South Branch of the Elizabeth River designated as the Intra Coastal Waterway plus upgrade of nearly 4 miles of approach road on Dominion Boulevard US17.

2012-11-19: Northern Virginia's new toll express lanes on the Capital Beltway are getting modifications to the southern entry in night-time work for the next several days. This in response to a spate of swerving incidents that included six crashes in the first 72 hours of operation of the 495 Express Lanes (XLs.)

2012-11-14: Struggling to finance $3.02 billion of its $5.6 billion rail line with toll revenue bonds the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) decided today to put firmly in place two years of toll increases but to defer a decision on recommended increases in the third year.  Tolls for the typical trip in a car on the 13.4 mile tollroad in the western part of the Washington DC metro area will rise from $2.25 to $2.75 (22%) January 1 2013 and to

2012-10-21: Segments 5 & 6 of Texas State Route 130 (TX130/5&6) are due to open to traffic Wednesday October 24, and the South Norfolk Jordan Bridge (SNJB) in Hampton Roads VA October 29. They are both investor-sponsored or private sector toll facilities, and both will be cashless or all-electronic tolling.

2012-10-18: The McDonnell administration in Virginia has resurrected the 63-20 tax exempt not-for-profit financing vehicle for the $1.4 billion 55 mile US460 tollroad between Petersburg and the Norfolk Hampton Roads area. A Ferrovial-led group has been chosen to do design-build work.

2012-09-18: Based on the first eight months' numbers traffic on the Dulles Greenway is up just a tad - about one percent - over 2011. That's good news since 2012 might be the first year in which total traffic matched the year before since the pike peaked in 2005. The last six years have all seen traffic decline from the previous year. And this on the supposedly developing fringe of the Washington DC metro area.

2012-09-07: Virginia DOT has signed contracts with AAA Mid-Atlantic, Wegmans and Giant to market E-ZPass transponders at their offices and stores. The program is branded E-ZPass On-the-Go.

AA Mid-Atlantic will market E-ZPass at 13 different offices across the state, Wegmans at 6 stores and Giant at 20 supermarkets.