BY TRACY AGNEW/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD
tracy.agnew@tidewaternews.com

SUFFOLK—The City Council this week took steps toward getting state and federal money to pay for widening and repaving Route 58 in the Holland area.

The Council agreed to ask the Virginia Department of Transportation to classify widening the road as an urban highway project, which gives it priority for funding.

The Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization recently ranked the road as its second priority among all Hampton Roads urban transportation projects, Public Works Director Eric Nielsen said.

“We should be there to get ready to ask for that money” when it becomes available, Nielsen said.

The road needs to be widened because it is becoming increasingly congested during peak times and because coming projects will add to the backup even more unless a solution is found. Among those projects is the CenterPoint Intermodal Center, a development of more than 900 acres that will include distribution by truck and by rail.

In other matters, the city also received about $276,000 in federal stimulus funds to pave U.S. Route 58 from the Holland Bypass to Lummis Road, Carolina Road from the Norfolk Southern rail crossing to Whaleyville Boulevard and Whaleyville Boulevard from John Mullen Road to Boonetown Road.

Nielsen said the roads were chosen based on stringent requirements from the federal government on how the money could be spent. Even signs and guardrails along roads to be repaved had to meet certain conditions, making the choice about more than just the condition of the pavement.

“This is a good start here,” Mayor Linda T. Johnson said of the projects.