the waters of Hampton Roads extend roughly from the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to the Route 17 James River Bridge
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
Hampton Roads is named after the Earl of Southampton, a leader in the London Company that financed English colonization in Virginia between 1607-1624. The "roads" refers to a place where a ship can ride at anchor, relatively safe from displacement by strong currents or storms.
Today Hampton Roads is a region. Its boundaries are not fixed by law, as are the boundaries of a county or city, and it is a judgment call on whether to include various jurisdictions. A regional economic strategy group known as the Hampton Roads Partnership existed for 17 years, between 1996-2013. By the time it dissolved, the Hampton Roads Partnership included Gloucester County on the Middle Peninsula, but not Mathews County. Northampton County, on the Eastern Shore, was also excluded.1
The boundaries of the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) are much broader. That agency handles wastewater, and was originally established in 1940 because health officials had banned harvest from oyster beds. Shellfish had absorbed untreated sewage, and become too polluted for consumption.2
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Economic leadership in Hampton Roads is divided. The Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce focuses on businesses north of the river (except for Williamsburg, which has a separate Greater Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance). The Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance uses the same boundaries as the now-defunct Hampton Roads Partnership, on both sides of the river. The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce has the broadest boundaries, and in 2014 it included Mathews County and even Curritick County in North Carolina.
The founding chair of the Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement had served as city manager for Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Hampton during his career, providing him a deep understanding of the challenge:3
One challenge to establishing a sense of identity, and to create regional unity for legislative objectives in the General Assembly, is that numerous rivers divide Hampton Roads. Only a limited number of bridges and tunnels allow vehicles to cross the water barriers; physical barriers reinforce jurisdictional boundaries. The General Assembly has granted authority for special Hampton Roads taxes to be dedicated to just Hampton Roads projects, but conflicting priorities over transportation funding at the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO) limited the region's ability to get state funding from the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
Downstream of the 4.5 miles long James River Bridge, major bridge-tunnels in the region include: |
 Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance jurisdictions (2014) Source: Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance |
 the City of Williamsburg is not included in the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce jurisdictions (2014) Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online |
 the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce jurisdictions includes Mathews County - and Currituck County in North Carolina (2014) Source: Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce |
 jurisdictions included within Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (2014) Source: Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization |
 Southampton, Surry, and Franklin belong to Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (2014) Source: Hampton Roads Planning District Commission |
The most expensive transportation project proposed for the region is a "Third Harbor Crossing" of the Hampton Roads harbor, to connect the Peninsula to South Hampton Roads. Officials on the Peninsula advocated for an expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (I-64) linking Norfolk and Hampton. Support on the southern side of Hampton Roads was stronger for the third crossing, renamed the "Patriot's Crossing" option.
The Patriot's Crossing proposal includes an east-west bridge-tunnel connecting the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel to Norfolk, plus a north-south road in the middle of the new bridge-tunnel that would cross Craney Island to connect to I-64 in Portsmouth.
The political conflict between "North" Hampton Roads and "South Hampton Roads" reached a stalemate - and in the eyes of Hampton Roads officials on both sides of the water, Northern Virginia and other regions were able to direct transportation funding to their projects at the expense of southeastern Virginia projects.
One solution was to devise an analytical, neutral mechanism to rate the benefits vs. costs of various projects. Also, in 2014 the General Assembly created a new political mechanism, the 23-member Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission.
That agency allows local officials to set priorities for spending $8-10 billion over the next 20 years, generated by local taxes approved in the 2013 transportation bill. The agency can also set tolls on different projects so each jurisdiction suffered a fair share. To ensure funding priorities are not too biased towards one part of Hampton Roads, the commission requires 2/3 of elected officials, representing 2/3 of the region's population, to approve projects.
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The governor made clear even before the first official meeting of the Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission that regional officials were now accountable for solving the regional transportation challenges, with the authority to go beyond standard political rhetoric and direct funding to resolve problems:4
At the commission's first meeting, however, it took nine votes before the members could elect the chair (the mayor of the City of Chesapeake) and five votes to choose the vice-chair (a state senator). A reporter noted that the commission was structured so the jurisdictions with the largest populations have more voting authority, but:5
Portsmouth in particular has felt aggrieved by the decisions of state officials. Under the state the Public Private Transportation Act (PPTA), the Virginia Department of Transportation contracted with a private company, Elizabeth River Crossings, to build a second Midtown Tunnel (as well as improving the Downtown Tunnel and extending the Martin Luther King Freeway). Tolls were re-established on Downtown and Midtown tunnels in 2014, helping to finance the second tube for the Midtown Tunnel. All of South Hampton Roads will benefit from the expanded transportation capacity - but because jobs are concentrated east of the Elizabeth River, Portsmouth residents commuting to work will pay 6-8 times more in tolls than residents in Virginia Beach and Norfolk.6 One analysis compared the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority to the Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission, and identified parochialism as the biggest challenge in southeastern Virginia:7
A lobbist for highway projects in Northern Virginia suggested that the cooperation in the DC suburbs was due to a unified business community that pressured elected officials to work together on long-term objectives, rather than fight for local improvements that could be cited during re-election campaigns: |
The new Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission chose to create a separate staff, independent from the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization and the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. The alternative was to hire one executive director and have that person be accountable to three separate boards, an approach considered unrealistic by the state delegate who sponsored creation of the Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission. Now, three separate agencies must coordinate transportation projects and priorities for the region.8
1. "Hampton Roads Partnership to merge with new group," The Virginian-Pilot, June 6, 2013, http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/hampton-roads-partnership-merge-new-group; "Hampton Roads Partnership Locality Profiles," Hampton Roads Partnership, http://hamptonroadsperforms.org/profiles/locality/ (last checked March 27, 2014)
2. "HRSD History," Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), http://www.hrsd.com/history.shtml (last checked March 27, 2014)
3. "Civic engagement: Movement afoot in Hampton Roads to breathe life into a sustainable, deliberative local democracy," Virginia Town and City, July 2009, http://hrcce.org/resources/32-an-article-about-hrcce-and-civic-engagement (last checked March 27, 2014)
4. "McAuliffe: Make decisions, not excuses about roads," The Virginian-Pilot, April 18, 2014, http://hamptonroads.com/node/713650 (last checked April 18, 2014)
5. "Area transportation board names chairman after 9 votes," The Virginian-Pilot, July 3, 2014, http://hamptonroads.com/2014/07/area-transportation-board-names-chairman-after-9-votes (last checked July 16, 2014
6. "ODU professor: Tunnel tolls will hit Portsmouth hardest," The Virginian-Pilot, January 15, 2014, http://hamptonroads.com/2014/01/odu-professor-tunnel-tolls-will-hit-portsmouth-hardest (last checked April 3, 2014)
7. "Transportation Authority: How does Hampton Roads get beyond its parochialism?," Inside Business - Hampton Roads Business Journal, August 1, 2014, http://insidebiz.com/node/407991 (last checked August 5, 2014)
8. "Regional transportation group votes to hire separate executive director, staff," Newport News Daily Press, August 21, 2014, http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-hrtac-0822-20140822,0,2489084.story (last checked August 23, 2014)
