If the purpose of a transportation system is to move goods, people, services, and other items safely from Point A to Point B in a timely manner, does Virginia Beach’s transportation system do this? In a short answer; no. While road congestion is not a problem that can be eradicated with current technology it can definitely be improved upon by the host city. But the recurring stagnation of road travel occurs to frequently in Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach’s current transportation system while serving a massive population still causes immense problems of crowding, accidents, commuting time, and squanders energy that negatively affects citizens. The following paper will identify specific infrastructure problems that are impeding the travel of residents and visitors while outlining remedies to those obstructions.
Virginia Beach is a populous city located on a small peninsula jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, in the state’s southeastern corner. Virginia Beach’s location is unique among the surrounding metropolitan area. It is sandwiched between the business and port city of Norfolk which acts as a gateway to additional commerce sectors in the other cities of Hampton Roads. The Bay and The Ocean acting as its northern and eastern borders respectively. The southern half of Virginia Beach consists of mostly rural, sparsely, populated centers that continue into North Carolina. However, an extensive network of rivers, estuaries, and lakes make traveling across narrow bridge choke points necessary, to be exact over 49.9 percent of Virginia Beach’s total area of 1288.51 square kilometers is composed of water (World Population Review, 2018, p. 1).
Virginia Beach is the 41st largest city in the Nation, the most populous in The Comonwelth of Virginia, and the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area is the 37th largest metropolitan area in the nation (World Population Review, 2018, p. 1). The City is largely suburban in layout. The city contains over 450,000 residents as of July this year with a population density of 1840 people per square mile (World Population Review, 2018, p. 1). A large portion of these citizens are employed in the extensive corporate business sector in Norfolk and thus a series of roads, highways, are a necessity streets to travel on time. In spite of this daily migration, I-264 is the fastest, most heavily used, most congested, and ironically the most convenient option for the majority of citizens to travel on during the five business days of the week.
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Major components of the Transportation system include The Hampton Roads Transit Bus service which serves the Greater Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area and are the cities main public transportation. As previously mentioned I-264 is the main highway that links Virginia Beach to Norfolk and goes all the way from the Oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the heart of downtown Norfolk and further west. The alternative option to reach Norfolk is to take Route 58, which is named Shore Drive when it passes into Virginia Beach. This four-lane road is plagued with frequent traffic light intersections, pedestrians jaywalking, and lack of space as it borders The Chesapeake Bay and cuts through many neighborhoods. There is no major road to connect southern Virginia Beach to Norfolk.
Transportation Infrastructure
At the dawn of the 20th century, Virginia Beach was a small township in the large rural Princess Anne Country a with a population just below 11,000 (World Population Review, 2018, p. 1). By the end of the century it was the most populous city in the state, a major area of military presence, a center for tourism on the eastern seaboard and had increased in population by over 2325 percent, the most notable span of growth was between 1960 and 1990 when owing to massive military and government projects and the consolidation of the county into an independent city the area’s population rose from 78,000 to over four hundred thousand (World Population Review, 2018, p. 1).
This surge of the population each appear as more or less as sprawling suburb to Norfolk, Portsmouth, or Hampton. With massive leases for neighborhoods, the city had little in the way of a downtown area until the 1990s. In theory the suburbs were only meant to go to Norfolk and back. But as Virginia Beach grew, it developed into a very spread out city with its own transportation infrastructure between different areas. Traveling between different communities in Virginia Beach started clogging streets that were previously only meant to relieve the Traffic to and from Norfolk. Through a series of updates, roads were built that connected Virginia Beach and allowed for easier commuting between these areas. The city continues to grow along with the number of commuters to Norfolk, that still have to travel on roads built for a smaller population base.
Scores of variables are involved when determining the source of a cities’s congestion. Factors such as population density, little to no public transportation, narrow roads, surrounding bodies of water, and not being a planned city are all present in Virginia Beach’s situation.
