Interstate 87 (NC-VA)

[The Ghostbuster]

We may have to wait awhile for future signs to go up.

[Interstate 69 Fan]

Spur to Greenville now Future Interstate 587!
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19189.0

[LM117]

http://www.dailyadvance.com/News/2016/11/15/Pasquotank-seeks-immediate-funding-for-I-87-1.html

Pasquotank County commissioners are calling for "immediate"  funding to develop U.S. 17 in northeastern North Carolina into Interstate 87.

Commissioners adopted a resolution last week that also will be sent to county boards of commissioners in Currituck, Camden, Perquimans, Chowan, Gates and Hertford counties.

Congress last year approved the interstate's creation, but funding wasn't included for bringing roads from Raleigh to Norfolk up to interstate standards.

In adopting the resolution, Pasquotank Commissioner Lloyd Griffin III said, the hope is that counties in the region can set funding priorities for future road projects associated with the I-87 project, including the costly upgrades to portions of highways in Williamston, Windsor and the town of Hertford. There – as well as eventually at Morgans Corner, Commissioner Jeff Dixon noted – I-87 will have to constructed so that through traffic won't be halted by stoplights.

Counties working together to prioritize I-87 funding will be important, Board of Commissioners Chairman Joe Winslow added, because state road funding will easily go to other projects otherwise. The state's Strategic Mobility Formula scored I-87-related projects poorly, meaning they're a low state priority, earlier this year.

Winslow said local I-87 upgrades would be uniquely beneficial to the region.

"The most benefit to the most counties in the most economic way is this particular resolution, which is opening up northeastern North Carolina,"  Winslow said.

Pasquotank's resolution notes the U.S. 17 upgrades would create "synergy"  with the expansion of a Foreign Trade Zone from Virginia's ports.

Though supporting the resolution, Dixon questioned other counties' commitment to the resolution, speculating they might prioritize local projects over I-87 development. Gates and Hertford counties have been pushing for upgrades to U.S. Highway 158 and U.S. Highway 13 for years, he noted.

Winslow said he had spoken with commissioners in other counties, and heard no objections to the resolution.

Also present for Monday's meeting were Cathy Davison, executive director of the Albemarle Commission, a regional economic development agency, and Angela Welsh, director of the Albemarle Rural Planning Organization. Supporting the resolution, Davison noted Pasquotank had available land that companies will need for expanding operations near Virginia's ports.

"Your industrial park is closer to the port than the closest vacant land in Virginia,"  Davison said.

So far, the state has funded feasibility studies for U.S. 17 and U.S. 64 to plan development of the I-87 corridor.

[froggie]

"Your industrial park is closer to the port than the closest vacant land in Virginia,"  Davison said.

This statement from the article is flat out false.  Plenty of empty land in Suffolk and Chesapeake, some of which I believe is even zoned industrial, that is closer to the port than any NC industrial park.

[The Ghostbuster]

Immediate funding? Impatient, aren't we Pasquotank County? If only other DOTs could commit to funding projects with such speed and urgency.

[Mapmikey]

"Your industrial park is closer to the port than the closest vacant land in Virginia,"  Davison said.

This statement from the article is flat out false.  Plenty of empty land in Suffolk and Chesapeake, some of which I believe is even zoned industrial, that is closer to the port than any NC industrial park.

The land between US 17 and Chesapeake Regional Airport is zoned light industrial and is essentially empty.  Guess she's never driven from Elizabeth City to Deep Creek before...

[orulz]

Land zoned for light industrial is easy to come by. Land for heavy manufacturing or other high-impact industry is NOT. That may be what they're talking about here.

[froggie]

In which case I'm still calling shenanigans, as there is still plenty of available heavy industrial land much closer to the port than E-City, including the former Ford plant right across from downtown Norfolk.  Can't get much closer than that..

[orulz]

It's a lot harder to develop on brownfields and derelict industrial buildings than greenfield land. Old industrial sites can require hundred million dollar cleanups that take a year or more. That said, it does sound odd that you would have to go that far to find ANYTHING....

LGL44VL

[Pete from Boston]

I'm way behind on this story, but has it been mentioned that this eerily bears out old MTR fictional mutterings about running I-87 down the Garden State Parkway, into the Delmarva, and into Hampton Roads? 

Regardless, I don't like the precedent for duplicate numbers so close (and I'm a fairly loose constructionist on numbering).  But we live in the era of "If I can decide to believe something and say it, it can be right and good and true," so old rules be damned.

[froggie]

^ MTR wasn't specifically mentioned, but yes there was conversation amongst some about how to connect the two I-87's....

[vdeane]

Heck, speculation from NCDOT about such things is the very reason why they requested an odd number to begin with!  Maybe it's also why AASHTO changed I-89 to I-87?

[wdcrft63]

Heck, speculation from NCDOT about such things is the very reason why they requested an odd number to begin with!  Maybe it's also why AASHTO changed I-89 to I-87?

IMHO we'll never see the two I-87's joined, but I'm sure it will be a topic for the forum for years to come.

[Pete from Boston]

Heck, speculation from NCDOT about such things is the very reason why they requested an odd number to begin with!  Maybe it's also why AASHTO changed I-89 to I-87?

IMHO we'll never see the two I-87's joined, but I'm sure it will be a topic for the forum for years to come.

This was also floated by fantasizers as I-101.

Funny footnote: these were among the first things I read on MTR and the roadgeek sites of the day and I did not, in fact, know fictional proposals were offered there in such detail.  I repeated these "plans" to others before realizing they were imaginary.

[sparker]

Heck, speculation from NCDOT about such things is the very reason why they requested an odd number to begin with!  Maybe it's also why AASHTO changed I-89 to I-87?

NCDOT, back when the numbers had yet to be finalized, cited conflict with state routes as the rationale for their initial choice of I-89, stating that all the available even numbers above 40 were state highways in the adjacent areas (their original choice of I-36 for the US 70 corridor also followed this logic). AASHTO basically told them that internal conflicts wouldn't rationalize the out-of-grid selection of "36" for the other corridor and basically assigned them I-42, even with NC 42 crossing the corridor in question.  Their rationale for changing 89 to 87 was arcane at best (it "lined up better longitudinally with the existing I-87") -- why, considering what they did with I-42, they didn't throw 46, 54, or another number at the situation remains perplexing.  A few weeks ago I stumbled across something that claimed the "87" number was selected for regional historical significance -- something important happened in 1687, something else in 1787 (OK, the U.S. Constitution was adopted, so that's at least genuine if a bit obvious), and something else in 1887 -- it seems a little like there's a bit of "reaching" to rationalize a decision that was based upon a discarded theory (the conflict with state highways having primacy). 

If you get the impression that I consider 87 to be an ill-conceived designation for this route, you are absolutely correct!  Will we all have to live with it?  Probably -- but that doesn't mean we can't grouse a bit!

[LM117]

A few weeks ago I stumbled across something that claimed the "87" number was selected for regional historical significance -- something important happened in 1687, something else in 1787 (OK, the U.S. Constitution was adopted, so that's at least genuine if a bit obvious), and something else in 1887 -- it seems a little like there's a bit of "reaching" to rationalize a decision that was based upon a discarded theory (the conflict with state highways having primacy.

That was an article just giving spin for I-87. It wasn't like they were gonna announce that the only reason I-87 was chosen was because I-89 got rejected.

[sparker]

A few weeks ago I stumbled across something that claimed the "87" number was selected for regional historical significance -- something important happened in 1687, something else in 1787 (OK, the U.S. Constitution was adopted, so that's at least genuine if a bit obvious), and something else in 1887 -- it seems a little like there's a bit of "reaching" to rationalize a decision that was based upon a discarded theory (the conflict with state highways having primacy.

That was an article just giving spin for I-87. It wasn't like they were gonna announce that the only reason I-87 was chosen was because I-89 got rejected.

"Yeah....umm....the number 87 was chosen because a lot of stuff happened around here in years ending in 87.  Not much happened in '89' years.....that's the ticket!"

[The Ghostbuster]

I would have preferred an even second digit for this freeway, since it currently goes more east-west than north-south. Only if Interstate 87 is extended in a north-south fashion north of Williamston will this be a legitimate Interstate with an odd second digit.

[vdeane]

I guess AASHTO must have thought NCDOT had a logical reason for choosing an odd number instead of accepting that NC does not give a **** about the interstate numbering system.  They're just like California: too cheap to renumber a state route, so they expect the more important system to bend to their whims.  That's not how it should work; the more important system should get numbering priority.  Thus, US routes, should bend to the whims of the interstates, and state routes should bend to the whims of both, and counties getting the scraps of whatever is left.  It's a shame that we've been doing the opposite since the inception of the interstate system.

[plain]

Any odd number for a Norfolk to Raleigh route is ridiculous no matter what excuse officials want to put out there. And on top of that if an interstate corridor was to actually happen from Wilmington (Delaware) southward, what sense would it make to have it terminate at Raleigh?? If anything it should terminate at I-95 in southern Georgia or at the very least South Carolina. Either way only an even numbered interstate makes sense for the US 64 corridor

[jwolfer]

Any odd number for a Norfolk to Raleigh route is ridiculous no matter what excuse officials want to put out there. And on top of that if an interstate corridor was to actually happen from Wilmington (Delaware) southward, what sense would it make to have it terminate at Raleigh?? If anything it should terminate at I-95 in southern Georgia or at the very least South Carolina. Either way only an even numbered interstate makes sense for the US 64 corridor

I agree on that.. End it just north of Savannah.. Once in Georgia i95 is pretty much right on the coast, in some places i95 is the last road before the ocean

LGMS428

[LM117]

Any odd number for a Norfolk to Raleigh route is ridiculous no matter what excuse officials want to put out there. And on top of that if an interstate corridor was to actually happen from Wilmington (Delaware) southward, what sense would it make to have it terminate at Raleigh?? If anything it should terminate at I-95 in southern Georgia or at the very least South Carolina. Either way only an even numbered interstate makes sense for the US 64 corridor

I agree on that.. End it just north of Savannah.. Once in Georgia i95 is pretty much right on the coast, in some places i95 is the last road before the ocean

http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/resources/I-99_Final_Report_-_VDOT_website.pdf

[adventurernumber1]

I'm honestly all for throwing an interstate designation on this corridor, but IMHO Interstate 87 is not the right number.

I initially was thinking Interstate 46 or Interstate 48 would be a good choice. However, US Highway 48 runs through Virginia, so the number 48 is out of the question (the last thing we need is another interstate in NC like 74 that violates the interstate and US highway numbering rules). That leaves us with 46. I think an Interstate 46 designation would work perfectly fine for this corridor, as it is more east-west than it is north-south, even if the interstate does make it to Virginia.

In addition to this, that means that the proposed I-587 on the US 264 corridor would work perfectly fine as an odd I-x46 interstate designation.

I honestly don't see why North Carolina needs to further cluster up their future interstate system. I love the idea, just not the numbering.

[Thing 342]

What difference does it make? Exactly zero people outside of this forum care whether 87 is the 'right' number for the road. The grid was only relevant when deciding the numbers for the initial routes.

[The Ghostbuster]

I agree. It could be Interstate 90210 and I doubt there would be much protest.