The Chesapeake City Council held a work session at 5:00 p.m. and a regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. on February 27, 2024, in the City Hall Council Chamber. The council discussed the Deep Creek Bridge construction impacts, sidewalk prioritization, and the Trails and Connectivity Plan, and took action on several public hearing items, consent agenda items, and regular agenda items. All nine council members were present.
Note: The meeting adjourned at approximately 7:51 p.m. according to the transcript.
I want to welcome everyone to our work session. Today, February the 27th, Mr. Manager, we had a lot of sunshine, nice weather. So I know you're going to continue that mood and introduce some really good topics to us. Thank you. Well, it is raining now, but we do. Not here. We do have three excellent topics. We have an update of Deep Creek Bridge project. I know that's high on people's mind. We have a sidewalk prioritization update. If you recall a few months ago, Councilmember Ritter asked us if we could brief council on how we prioritize the many, many, many uh sidewalk needs out there. And then planning department's going to give an update on the trails and connectivity plan. And so we'll start uh with uh director of public works, Earl Sorry and his team with the Deep Creek Bridge update. Uh thank you, Mr. Manager. Uh we appreciate the opportunity to address council tonight. I know that each of you have received numerous uh inquiries about the traffic associated with the Army Corps of Engineers replacement of the Deep Creek Bridge project. And so we wanted to share with you a little bit about what we've done to date to help mitigate traffic, uh what we are doing, and also share some uh potential future uh initiatives with you. Uh so uh what you can see on this slide is an overview of what the finished product will look like. Uh so again, the project is owned and being managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Uh but the benefits are uh when it is done, it will provide additional uh you know pavement for moving traffic. It will also signalize uh the intersection of George Washington Highway South at Moses Grandy Trail, and then the additional capacity will allow us to uh to to implement more efficient traffic signal timings. So uh you see numerous uh phases throughout the construction here, so it's broken down into uh seven distinct phases. Uh I won't go into all of those. Uh we will invite uh the Army Corps back to uh address you and give you a construction update, really. We wanted to talk about traffic tonight, but uh I share just this with you just to let you know that it is complex, there's a lot of uh moot moving parts uh on this. Uh the the first phase of construction kicked off in September of 2023, and based on uh the Corps uh currently published schedule, uh the project would be fully completed in early 2027. So to go over some of the uh actions to date, uh you know, in advance of the project, we did install new traffic signal equipment of this intersection to give us uh as much you know capabilities and flexibility uh as possible. Uh we do routinely monitor from our traffic uh management center uh traffic flow uh through the corridor. You know, what one thing that is is a fairly new development is uh we we do have a CCTV camera at the intersection that is available for access through VDOTS 511 system, you know, so that that is there uh today. Uh we have implemented additional turn restrictions to address traffic in the immediate vicinity of the bridge to include a no-left turn restriction uh uh coming up from the south on George Watson Highway at Moses Grandy Trail. Um and we have installed additional advanced warning signs, you know, well in advance of the construction area, kind of at those key decision points to alert motorists to expect delays and to consider alternate routes. Uh so one of the things on the horizon is you can see uh in the picture, that is a portable CCTV camera system. And our our plan is to purchase four of those. So uh one for each approach that will give us the capability to uh you know see see the end of of the traffic queue. Uh we don't have that capability now. We just really see uh at the intersection, uh but again we plan to publicly share that information through VDOT's 511 system. Uh we've also suspended all non-emergency uh roadway work in the area. Now, with that said, there's still work going on. You know, HRSD uh still has some work to do. Uh but for those projects that were in the queue that that we can afford for them to move to the right, we we we've delayed those projects uh to assist with traffic mitigation in this area. Uh and you know that's something that our staffs are meeting regularly on. So, you know, we are regularly deconflicting our our public projects with the franchise utility projects with the and the HRSD you know projects, and we also have a uh increased police uh presence in the area uh for selective enforcement. So uh do want to go through some of the construction impacts and and really you know that this was an area you know where it's kind of the missing link in the entire transportation network. So council is where well aware of all the funds that have been expended to build the network around you know this one little area. So what was already somewhat painful during peak hours is is more difficult today. And it really, you know, if if you look, we've reduced seven lanes from this intersection. So you know, for northbound, it's from three to two, and then southbound is from four to two, and so on.