Chesapeake-Bay

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The Chesapeake Bay is approximately 200 miles (300 km) long, from the Susquehanna River in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. At its narrowest point between Kent County's Plum Point (near Newtown) and the Harford County shore near Romney Creek, the Bay is 2.8 miles (4.5 km) wide; at its widest point, just south of the mouth of the Potomac River, it is 30 miles (50 km) wide. Total shoreline for the Bay and its tributaries is 11,684 miles (18,804 km), and the surface area of the bay and its major tributaries is 4,479 square miles (11,601 km²). Average depth of the bay is 46 feet (14 m) and the maximum depth is 208 feet (63 m).

The bay is spanned in two places. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge crosses the bay in Maryland from Sandy Point (near Annapolis) to Kent Island; the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia connects Virginia Beach to Cape Charles. It has environmental issues, but is noted for its beauty; in recent years, a pattern has been that it is becoming "emptier", with fewer crabs, oysters, and watermen.^[4]

bay bridge tunnel 02

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Eight-lane widening with HOV lanes, was completed in July 2006, on the 10.7 miles of I-64 from 0.5 mile west of Bland Boulevard in Newport News, to the I-664 westerly ramps with I-64 in Hampton. There were earlier I-64 widening projects to the east of the current projects, to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT), and future I-64 widening projects are planned to the west of the current projects, to Richmond. The I-64 highway and these projects are administered by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).
The four widening projects on the 10.7 mile segment of I-64 described above, have been completed to eight lanes, with the easternmost project completed in July 2006. In December 2001, two new HOV-2 lanes, one eastbound and one westbound, opened on the 7.6-mile-long section of I-64 between near the Bland Boulevard overpass and Hampton Roads Center Parkway, thus adding new 7th and 8th lanes to the new 5th and 6th lanes that were opened earlier in 2001. By July 2006, the HOV lanes were extended to I-664. The inside lane each way on this 10.7 miles of I-64 are concurrent flow HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes that are HOV-2 during peak morning and evening weekday hours. So three lanes each way are general purpose lanes open to all motor vehicle traffic at all times, and the inside lane each way is HOV-2 (each vehicle must have at least two people) during peak periods and is open to all traffic during non-peak times.
The final 2.5-mile-long I-64 widening project between Hampton Roads Center Parkway and I-664, the Coliseum Central Project, was placed under construction in June 2001 and was completed in July 2006, and it included major expansion to the US-258 Mercury Boulevard interchange, and it added one lane each way to the I-64 highway which was formerly three lanes each way, and the new lanes are on the inside of each roadway and have the same HOV-2 peak period restrictions as described above. Actually, including auxiliary lanes added on the right of each I-64 roadway, the I-64 highway has 10 lanes (5 each way) between Hampton Roads Center Parkway and VA-134 Magruder Boulevard, 12 lanes (6 each way) between Magruder Boulevard and US-258 Mercury Boulevard, and 10 lanes (5 each way) between Mercury Boulevard and I-664. I-64 is a very wide highway in that segment.

Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel

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Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT) is the 4.6 mile-long (7.4 km) Hampton Roads crossing for Interstate 664. It is a four-lane bridge-tunnel comprised of bridges, trestles, man-made islands, and tunnels under a portion of the Hampton Roads harbor where the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth Rivers come together in South Hampton Roads, in the southeastern portion of Virginia in the United States. It connects the independent cities of Newport News on the Virginia Peninsula and Suffolk in South Hampton Roads and is part of the Hampton Roads Beltway

Interstate 664 is the 20.7-mile-long freeway that connects I-64 in Hampton to I-64/I-264 in Chesapeake, completed in April 1992. I-664 includes the 4.6-mile Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT). The MMMBT cost $400 million to build, and it includes a four-lane tunnel that is 4,800 feet long, two man-made portal islands, and 3.2 miles of twin trestle. Northbound on the MMMBT is one of the most spectacular views on any road I know of; Hampton Roads makes a "V" with one branch to your ten o'clock, and the other branch to your two o'clock. You see an enormous expanse of water, left, right, and ahead of you, with the landfall of the Peninsula dead ahead. On the ten o'clock branch, you see the Newport News Marine Terminal and Shipyards, on the two o'clock branch, you see the Norfolk Naval Base. Typically, you will see a couple Nimitz-class aircraft carriers moored in the distance, and many other ships. Another nice feature, is that the MMMBT is toll-free. The name comes from the fact that the duel between the two Civil War ironclads was fought less than a mile from the where the tunnel is today.

bay bridge tunnel

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If you love history, you will certainly enjoy a visit to nearby Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown.  We have battlefields and history galore in Hampton Roads.  There isn’t a single school child that has not taken a field trip to Colonial Williamsburg. And while you are there, be sure to visit Busch Gardens and ride my favorite metal coaster, the Lochness Monster!

ledo burma roads assam burma china

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India, Myanmar and China are working to give this historic road a new lease on life. Repair of the road – some stretches of which are not motorable or simply don’t exist – is in progress. It is hoped that the three countries will soon decide to reopen it for trade and travel. 

A reopened Stilwell Road would provide a land link between two of the fastest-growing economies in the world – those of India and China. It would link two landlocked regions, India’s northeast and China’s Yunnan province. 

Goods from India’s northeast headed for China or Southeast Asian countries are currently shipped via Kolkata, the nearest port, through the Strait of Malacca and on to China. It takes at least a couple of weeks for goods to reach China. “If they go via the Stilwell Road our goods would reach Yunnan in two days,” Pradyut Bordoloi, Assam’s commerce and industries minister and an ardent advocate of reopening the road, told Asia Times Online. It would reduce transport costs by more than 30%. 

The Stilwell Road will link northeastern India not just with Yunnan but with other parts of China and Southeast Asia as well. The Chinese have constructed a network of roads connecting Yunnan with other provinces. “And there are roads branching out from the Stilwell Road that provide connectivity to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and so on,” said Abhijit Barooah, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry. 

India’s northeastern region connects with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China by a 4,500km international border but connects with India only through the Siliguri Corridor, a mere 22km wide. Ninety-eight percent of the northeast’s borders are with other countries, and only 2% with India. Yet this region’s trade with other countries is minuscule, limited to informal trade. While cross-border trade is almost non-existent, the northeast’s trade with the rest of India, which is done through the narrow Siliguri Corridor, has failed to take off. 

“If the border is opened up for overland trade with neighboring countries, the northeastern region would benefit. It could be pulled out of its current economic backwardness,” said Bordoloi. 

Barooah said, “Even if 10% of India’s shipment to China and Southeast Asia were to be routed through the Stilwell Road, its impact on the northeast would be dramatic.” 

Reopening the Stilwell Road would be beneficial to Myanmar, China and Southeast Asia as well. China has been eyeing India’s northeast as a potential market for its goods. 

Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel

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A man-made island across the navigational channel of the mouth of Hampton Roads from Old Point Comfort was created for Fort Calhoun (a portion of the Fort Monroe complex later renamed Fort Wool). This man-made island found a new purpose in 1957, when it was used to anchor the south part of the Hampton Roads Bridge-tunnel.

The HRBT has two 12-foot (3.7 m)-wide (3.7 m) lanes each way, on separately built bridge-tunnel structures. The original two-lane structure replaced a ferry system and opened November 1, 1957 at a cost of $44 million dollars as a toll facility. The bridge-tunnel was originally signed as State Route 168 and U.S. Route 60. It later received the Interstate 64designation, and, much later, SR 168 was truncated south of the crossing.

The construction of the original HRBT was funded with toll revenue bonds. The bonds were paid off before a second portion was opened in 1976.

The construction of the $95 million second portion of the HRBT was funded as part of the Interstate Highway System as authorized under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, as a portion of I-64, which means that it was funded with 90% FHWA funds from the Highway Trust Fund and 10% state DOT funds. When the second span was opened to traffic, the tolls were removed from the earlier portion.

The I-64 HRBT has two man-made tunnel portal islands, at the place where Hampton Roads flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The two man-made tunnel portal islands were widened to the west to accommodate the parallel bridge-tunnel project work accomplished between 1972 and 1976.

stelvio pass road

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Stelvio Pass

You say “dangerous”, I say “fun”. Maybe it was the good fortune of spending my formative driving and riding years strafing the canyons around Boulder, Colorado, but I can’t help getting worked up over mountain roads with plenty of switchbacks, blind corners and decreasing radius turns. I may prefer asphalt to dirt, but I’m no stranger to Jeep trails in the Rockies, either. I’ve learned the hard way why you never wash the mud from a rental Toyota 4Runner that you used to explore the Switzerland Trail (unless you really really like trying to buff out brush pinstriping).