VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - It's a curvy, windy, two-lane road where backups occur daily.
"Elbow Road sees over 10,000 vehicles per day," said Annette Hare, project manager with the City of Virginia Beach Public Works.
Elbow Road is a heavily-traveled, five-mile road connecting Chesapeake to Virginia Beach near Stumpy Lake.
"The highest priority in our engineering office is to take the 'elbow' out of Elbow Road on the east side of North Landing River," said Hare.
The City of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake are working to align the road, a project that's been in the works for years.
"Wider lanes, bike lanes, sidewalks, gutters and piping for drainage is all part of it," said Hare.
The curve or elbow where you must slow to 10 miles per hour has seen its fair share of accidents, mainly people driving off the narrow lanes.
According to the City of Virginia Beach, Elbow Road ranks number 23 out of 289 road segments with highest crash data between the years of 2017 and 2019.
"Speed is often a factor in roadway departure crashes," said Hare. "The sharp S curve over the river is so short and narrow and low lying, and we need to replace the bridge over that with a new concrete bridge. "
The City of Virginia Beach just secured cash to make Elbow Road an urban-style roadway where they will widen it to four lanes, get rid of the steep ditches, tight curves and leave little room for error for drivers.
"In the most simplest form, it is dimension. We want to provide more rooms for vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists," said Hare.
The project was set to begin in 2018, but the mass shooting in Virginia Beach sadly put the project on the back burner.
"Unfortunately, we lost three of the six right-of-way agents working directly on this project," Hare said.
In a year, Hare says they will straighten the road and install the bridge through wetlands and near neighborhoods, all in an effort to improve safety by 2024.
For details on the project, click here.
