Washington, D.C. – Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04) will appear Monday morning at the Dominion Boulevard improvement project groundbreaking at 400 Dominion Boulevard in Chesapeake on Monday, December 17 at 10:30am.

 Roughly 33,000 vehicles travel Dominion Blvd. each day, making it one of the most heavily traveled two-lane roads in Virginia.  Yet the Steel Bridge opens an average of 16 times daily, and at 10 minutes per lift, that means that as a community, we wait an average of 42 days each year for the bridge to be open to traffic. The current bridge and two-lane roadway limits access by public safety professionals and raises concerns that in the event of an evacuation, congestion would hinder efforts.

Congressman Randy Forbes said, “As the Commonwealth looks to the future, meeting our transportation needs is essential to our economic vitality.  This critical project will improve access to public safety first responders, reduce the number of accidents, and ensure the free flow of goods and services.  I commend the City of Chesapeake in its forward thinking. The City has found a responsible way forward for a critical project that will benefit this region for years to come.”

“Our region has an immense economic engine in the Port of Virginia,” continued Congressman Forbes. “However, without projects like Dominion Boulevard that strengthen our infrastructure to meet transportation needs, we will be unable to take full advantage of potential growth in trucking, shipping and manufacturing that will rely so heavily on being able to move goods through the Commonwealth, on and off of ships at the Port and eventually into our homes and around the world.”

The Dominion Boulevard Improvement Project will replace the two-lane Steel Bridge with a 95’ high, fixed-span, four-lane bridge.  The project will also expand the roadway from two-lanes to four-lanes between Cedar Road and Great Bridge Boulevard and will construct interchanges at Cedar Road, Bainbridge Bridge Boulevard/Dominion Lakes and Great Bridge Boulevard.  Construction is sched­uled to begin in January 2013.

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