Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Two-Mile Moonscape in Virginia Beach: Thanks, Bureaucrats!

—

by

Bob Rayner
in

by Kerry Dougherty 

Virginia Beach politicians are doing their happy dance. Earlier this week state officials gave them good news: they’re “near the finish line” on the Laskin Road project.

Oh, please.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Let’s review, shall we?

In 2019 construction began on the two-mile-long road widening project through the heavily traveled Hilltop corridor of Virginia Beach.

Two measly miles!

The initial cost estimate was $83.2 million and it was supposed to be complete in the spring of 2023.

Construction started to dismantle the feeder road system that runs along Laskin Road and bedevils tourists and locals alike.

Confession: I like the free-wheeling  feeder roads. They’re an anything-goes ribbon along a heavily traveled road. Our Little Autobahn where speed limits and rules of the road seem suspended. I used them constantly.

When I wrote about the endless construction in the fall of 2022, the cost had soared to $141.7 million and it was still set to wrap up early in 2023.

Hah.

The reasons for the years of delays and inconvenience range from covid to utilities.

Those of us who drive through that pockmarked moonscape, risking soft tissue injuries and our front-end alignments, see little progress. Especially around the busy First Colonial Avenue and Laskin Road intersection.

But the Pollyannas at VDOT are now predicting that the intersection will be finished by November 1 and the remainder of the construction will wrap up by spring of 2025.

Two years behind schedule and $67 million over cost estimates. Oh well, it’s only tax dollars.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, the state is attempting to goose the project with an offer of $1.5 million in incentives if the intersection is cleared by November 1.

In other words, the contractor is being rewarded for being behind schedule.

Only a government agency would think this is a good idea.

Here’s some free advice for VDOT: next time, offer incentives for finishing early at the beginning of the road project and attach penalties if there are delays.

Wait. Am I thinking like a business person rather than a bureaucrat?

My bad.

Republished with permission from Kerry; Unemployed and Unedited. 

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

41 responses to “Two-Mile Moonscape in Virginia Beach: Thanks, Bureaucrats!”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    re: ” Confession: I like the free-wheeling feeder roads. They’re an anything-goes ribbon along a heavily traveled road. Our Little Autobahn where speed limits and rules of the road seem suspended. I used them constantly.”

    why am I not shocked?

    I’ve got news for Kerry. VDOT is responding to that kind of driver with their road upgrades. When they get done, Kerry will no longer like it I predict and we’ll hear about it in another rant!

    What is VDOT doing with roads like this?

    It’s called Access Management and it prioritizes safety over speed and “free-wheeling” behaviors.

    1. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      The more red lights you get stopped at, the safer you are.

      “If speed kills…we have the safest roads in the nation!”

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        We have way too many yahoos on the roads these days.

        here is an exampe:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c82ea7b1bd33068ff7bf40647c419f62ce2313c9fe0b24e28d53657904645915.png

        another:

        ” Of the 1,010 people taken by traffic violence in Virginia in 2022, 182 were walking or biking when they were killed, a 19.4% increase over the previous year. Out of the 171 pedestrians killed, 60.2% of the total were aged 51 or older according to data from the DMV’s Traffic Records Electronic Data System”

        and another:

        ” The 2022 figures, released by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, show a 3.8% increase in deaths over 2021. There’s been a 43.6% increase in deaths since 2014.”

        this is, despite, safer cars and safer roads… too many are driving way faster than conditions …….

        Time to do the cameras on a widespread basis – rein in the yahoos, and better protect those that are being injured and killed by them.

  2. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    VDOT appears to have never recovered from being decimated by Allen.

    Locally recently we had a rural crossroads that had turn lanes added. It took about 2 1/2 years, drove the local business at the intersection out of business, and insult to injury is rough as a cob. Go figure.

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    VDOT? VaBeach is an independent city. Aren’t they responsible for their own roads like Newport News and Hampton? The only VDOT mess on the Peninsula is in York County & Poquoson where the speed limits make zero sense and it took ‘em forever to widen Rte. 17 at the dam.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Is that the place where they poured the road dead flat and with the first thunderstorm it turned 64 into a pond?

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        That’s interstate, not local responsibility, but yep.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          It’s US signed roads as well as Virginia primary and secondaries.

          US-designated roads have Federal standards and are eligible for direct Federal funding.

          These were the Federal roads before the interstate system but they are still designated and managed as Federal highways:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb0afd4f6f534ef6773a1dff465a27a4ba073dfbb29a700951d00a7dbcb6d024.png

          1. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Sure, Fed funding, but the VDOT spends it and does or contracts the work. On the Peninsula, even the US routes are done by city maintenance and their contractors.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            I know there is such a thing as a VDOT Locally administered project:

            https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/doing-business/for-localities/local-assistance/locally-administered-projects/

            beyond that I admit ignorance.

          3. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Let’s put it this way, unless I’m up in York County, I’ve never seed a yellow truck with VDOT painted on it.

          4. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            geeze, the VDOT trucks up my way are white these days!

          5. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Oh. Maybe that’s why…

          6. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbfb2dc4c9d54e045c00dbb9afb4bb2d5b38f79d205db58b812edcaefeae728b.png

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    “According to VDOT, the delay was inevitable because of a variety of issues. This includes the soil’s condition, revisions to the project, and major issues with utility lines that run underneath Laskin Road.

    Kelley said there are 11 miles of “pipes” that can be found underneath two miles of the roadway. When crews went to remove the pipes marked as abandoned, they found several were still active.

    “This creates delays as crews must safely and efficiently identify and deconflict the utilities before installing new ones,” said Kelley.”

    https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/mycity/virginia-beach/laskin-road-project-delayed-2025-virginia-beach-hilltop/291-a6ce404f-1696-4ad5-b85c-fec5a8291dd5

    primary, secondary and Federal roads that go through cities may still be the responsibility of VDOT. Laskin Rd is US 58 I think.

    In this case, the 82+ million is coming from VDOT and the Feds, not VB.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      What, nobody in Virginia Beach pays into the state or federal gas tax? Or pays sales taxes, also shared with VDOT? How stupid do you think people are? (Wait, wait, don’t tell me…I know this one.)

    2. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      What, nobody in Virginia Beach pays into the state or federal gas tax? Or pays sales taxes, also shared with VDOT? How stupid do you think people are? (Wait, wait, don’t tell me…I know this one.)

    3. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      What, nobody in Virginia Beach pays into the state or federal gas tax? Or pays sales taxes, also shared with VDOT? How stupid do you think people are? (Wait, wait, don’t tell me…I know this one.)

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        They DO pay into it like we all do but they probably don’t pay the 82+ million cost in a year or two. It would take quite some time to accumulate the money dedicated to just that one project.

        In fact, you’ll hear people in RoVa grousing about how much money Hampton is getting for the tunnels (while Hampton grouses about the tolls that will not fully fund it).

        That’s what VDOT (Feds) do. They collect the money statewide/national then set up how to distribute and it’s not done on proportional basis annually.

        Doesn’t work at all like the Va budget does on an annual basis where all the revenues get distributed back out in one year on a somewhat proportional basis ( like for schools, law enforcement, social services, etc).

        VDOT gets all the gas tax money but does not distribute it back out annually on a strict proportional basis. In fact, uses a process called SmartScale where projects deemed to be cost efficient get favored funding and not necessarily on a per jurisdiction or county basis.

        So VB will get a project then not get another one that large next year or even the year after because other jurisdictions will get their big project funding.

        People are not stupid but they are ignorant. We all are on things we have
        not learned about.

      2. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        They DO pay into it like we all do but they probably don’t pay the 82+ million cost in a year or two. It would take quite some time to accumulate the money dedicated to just that one project.

        In fact, you’ll hear people in RoVa grousing about how much money Hampton is getting for the tunnels (while Hampton grouses about the tolls that will not fully fund it).

        That’s what VDOT (Feds) do. They collect the money statewide/national then set up how to distribute and it’s not done on proportional basis annually.

        Doesn’t work at all like the Va budget does on an annual basis where all the revenues get distributed back out in one year on a somewhat proportional basis ( like for schools, law enforcement, social services, etc).

        VDOT gets all the gas tax money but does not distribute it back out annually on a strict proportional basis. In fact, uses a process called SmartScale where projects deemed to be cost efficient get favored funding and not necessarily on a per jurisdiction or county basis.

        So VB will get a project then not get another one that large next year or even the year after because other jurisdictions will get their big project funding.

        People are not stupid but they are ignorant. We all are on things we have
        not learned about and transportation funding is one of them. Probably not 1 in 1000, could tell you how it works Many elelcted leaders don’t know.

        It’s like magic!

        You can do a little back of the envelope. A guy that drives 20K a year and gets 20mpg will pay about 30 cents a gal tax on 1000 gallons, 300 dollars annually.

        there are probably 300K of people old enough to drive in VB.

        Maybe that generates about 300 million a year?

        What’s the total annual VDOT VB budget for VB beyond the 82 million?

        You can get it from VDOT’s six year budget but I’m betting very, very few people have and know. Not stupid but ignorant. All of us, just on different subjects!

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          VDOT’s total annual budget is:
          7,573,496,312. Va’s population is about 8,500,00. do the math and you’ll get about $900 per person. Multiple that by 400K (population of VB) and you get something like $356 million. Half of VDOT’s budget goes for maintenance and operation of existing roads.

          So maybe they’d net 200 million a year? So, if they did not have any other projects, they could pay for that project in 6 months if no other projects? ha!

          just for Laskin Rd alone – there is more than 200 million –
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4aa0231c937a730ebfb38ed6f74b9fe878502df1bfd6e7a51632d08317399e5.png

          I get more than a billion dollars for transportation construction in VB in that 6yr plan if I rough count the the projects in the last 3 highest $ sorted tables.

      3. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Here’s how people pay for transportation in Virginia – it’s not just fuel tax. An almost equal amount comes from the general sales tax and another 1/3 from the sales tax on new vehicles:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61feaa11dd727267ddf87fe764140db5b9ad9d7de87cf30a1ed2e92e1ddb8256.png

        https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/sites/default/files/documents/tracking_mar24.pdf

        People are not stupid but likely very few actually know the actual taxes and amounts and how much they actually pay themselves.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec2c7764c6f529ab1c7af910d8df3800e3fdb706fe5fd5e55867f1cf29cee7b1.png

    4. Thomas Carter Avatar
      Thomas Carter

      From the 13newsnow.com article — “According to VDOT, the delay was inevitable because of a variety of issues. This includes the soil’s condition, revisions to the project, and major issues with utility lines that run underneath Laskin Road.”

      Things like soil conditions and confirmation of existing utility lines are reasonably expected to be addressed before the start of a project. That is a basic responsibility of the government authority.

      VDOT: https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/doing-business/technical-guidance-and-support/location-and-design/hydraulics-and-utilities/

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        I don’t disagree on the soil conditions but utilities are different and harder.

        Not so easy when some utilities were put in decades ago and no modern records exist. Others, that they DO know about, they can’t dictate to the utility when to move… them… it’s the utility prerogative and if multiple overlapping utilities exist from different companies… not so easy for VDOT to predict.

        1. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          “Not so easy when some utilities were put in decades ago and no modern records exist.”

          There’s an entire industry dedicated to finding utilities that were put in decades ago with no modern records.

          If you’ve ever called 811 for a utility locate, someone who works in that industry put the marks down.

          Even the records for utilities installed in recent times are sometimes wrong, which is why they use electronic locating devices to do the locates.

          Miss Utility / 811 even has a specific term for the the type of ticket that might be opened with them for a utility locate before a road or a building is constructed…

          ….it’s called a “designer ticket”.

          It’d be REALLY INTERESTING to see if a designer ticket was ever opened for the subject of this article.

        2. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          “Not so easy when some utilities were put in decades ago and no modern records exist.”

          There’s an entire industry dedicated to finding utilities that were put in decades ago with no modern records.

          If you’ve ever called 811 for a utility locate, someone who works in that industry put the marks down.

          Even the records for utilities installed in recent times are sometimes wrong, which is why they use electronic locating devices to do the locates.

          Miss Utility / 811 even has a specific term for the the type of ticket that might be opened with them for a utility locate before a road or a building is constructed…

          ….it’s called a “designer ticket”.

          It’d be REALLY INTERESTING to see if a designer ticket was ever opened for the subject of this article.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            True. Also true, the locally, we’ve had the same issues – including utilities no one knew about, others on top of each other , tangled, etc.

            We’re not talking about a homeowner needing utiliquest.
            Think of an intersection in active use , 25,000 cars a day and underneath is water/sewer/phone/electric/gas, etc… all layered and tangled.

            Easier for the naysayers to say.

            It’s just not an easy thing.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            The problem is for existing roads..and moving utilities – you’ve got to keep the road open and all the utilities continuing to function.

            That’s not an easy thing.

            You basically have to somehow build the new utility infrastructure while the road is open and then switch it over when it’s ready.

            Needless to say – it’s far from a perfect process.

            You’ve got a mixture of contractors on site also – different companies that are trying to coordinate their efforts.

            We had almost 2 years of delay on re-doing an existing 4-lane road to a 6-lane, closing off side roads and crossovers… several outages happened… water, elelctricity, internet… etc…

            Maybe there is a way for VDOT to do this better but I’m not going to believe the naysayers in the cheap seats actually know…. and are “better” engineers! 😉

          3. Thomas Carter Avatar
            Thomas Carter

            Not easy, but it goes with the territory.

          4. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Totally true but it does not make it dead simple nor quick.

            buried utilities along major highways and intersections is hard and a tough gig.

            You have to be able to keep the road open and the utilities continue to function as you make changes and you don’t even know where all the utilities are especially if they are stacked on each other.

            Big projects often run into things they could not easily predict much less how long it would take to do it.

            We’ve had several in the Fredericksburg area that went well over the predicted finish date.

            I’m ALL FOR contracting it out fully and giving incentives to private companies if they can do it better, quicker, cheaper.

          5. Thomas Carter Avatar
            Thomas Carter

            The magnitude of the time and cost overruns cannot be justified by the “unforeseen” hurdles.

            Some of the issues with the I-95 project in and north of Fredericksburg were the result of poor management which resulted in changes in oversight to work on getting it back on track.

          6. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            Once the utility right of way has been quit claimed and the utility abandoned, there is no onus for any one-call mark out to be performed. A private utility mark out may have located the lines and we normally perform one when drilling for safety reasons but that is actually somewhat unusual. Too many people rely on one call mark outs alone and too many utilities are inadvertently struck that way.

          7. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            VDOT calls Miss Utility just for ditch regrading and cleaning. After many calls and emails they finally, finally came and fixed the ditch in front of my house, which had water in it days after the last rainstorm.

          8. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            Can’t vouch for VDOT’s response time… but any ground disturbance requires a utility one-call ticket by law. When I said, “Once the utility right of way has been quit claimed and the utility abandoned, there is no onus for any one-call mark out to be performed.” I meant on that abandoned line. The entity digging must always call the one-call service to mark utilities if they are doing any ground disturbance but the one call ticket only requires the companies with active utilities in the work area to mark their lines. Abandoned utilities with no existing easement do not respond. There is no service associated with one call that marks all lines in the area of work. That requires a separate private utility mark out.

          9. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            yeah… learned the hard way twice AND 3rd time, had it marked, contractor saw the mark and still dug and cut it.

            Said he was “sorry”.

      2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        I have not wasted my time in looking into this particular case but geotechnical investigations rely on borings which represent a tiny fraction of the actual subsurface conditions. It is not uncommon for actual conditions to vary considerably. The article suggests many of the utilities were previously abandoned. Standard utility locating services would not locate abandoned lines.

    5. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      In the City of Manassas Park, VA route 28 is the responsibility of that city. Ditto for 234 and 28 through the City of Manassas, again the responsibility of that city.

      There are no secondary roads (numbered above 600) in cities in Virginia that I’ve ever seen. Routes other than primary routes (599 and below) and US/Interstate routes are not numbered in cities.

      (When Manassas Park redid the intersection of 28 and Manassas Drive, they did it in concrete, against the wishes of VDOT. Can someone explain to me what problem VDOT has with concrete? Is it the same problem they have with anything they aren’t familiar with?)

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        For different kinds of roads, interstates, primaries, secondary, subdivision, etc, there are different standards that have to be followed. Many secondary roads go right through smaller towns in Va BTW.

        I do not/have not claimed VDOT is a saint.

        They’re not but some of the critics are over the top IMO.

        Roads are hard.

        by the way, VDOT, in addition to their six year financial/build plan has a dashboard:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4c6363e211964b300ad94d8f8052839226cb34f3c1a0643c6f389ae2d5925c7.png

        https://dashboard.virginiadot.org/pages/projects/projects.aspx

  5. Thomas Carter Avatar
    Thomas Carter

    Speaking of road funds, remember the U.S. Route 460 Corridor Improvement Project, a 55-mile, $1.4 billion toll road that would stretch from Suffolk to Petersburg? How much did that never-to-be-completed boondoggle cost taxpayers and who in Virginia’s bureaucracy didn’t suffer the consequences of poor oversight and planning?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      I think McAuliffe killed it ..

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/807c6975dea6dedd4716c075c21ca0b2598356a2953055f3526247c2b2abe0b5.png

      “McDonnell’s curious, long-standing obsession with building a new highway parallel to U.S. 460 outside Hampton Roads led his administration to spend $300 million (and counting) without first ensuring that the project would receive necessary environmental permits.

      Whoops. As some officials and outside critics had warned from the start, a government study issued last month said the federal permits will be virtually impossible to obtain because of the risk of damaging wetlands.”

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/robert-mcdonnells-other-big-scandal-bum-deal-on-us-460-project-cost-virginia-plenty/2014/10/11/ebf08fc6-50be-11e4-babe-e91da079cb8a_story.html

  6. Jim Kibler Avatar
    Jim Kibler

    “Wait. Am I thinking like a business person rather than a bureaucrat?”

    You were a reporter.

Leave a Reply

Read More