Your Thanksgiving drive through Hampton Roads will be a lot smoother this year but will the roads withstand the cold and wet weather?
Potholes have, unfortunately, always been a staple of holiday travel in Hampton Roads… until this year.
“It’s no longer going to be a bumpy ride… smooth and safe for all motorists,” says Brooke Grow with VDOT.
Grow says over the past few months, VDOT has poured tens of millions of dollars into I-264 and I-64.
They’ve replaced the old, crumbling concrete and put in a thin, hot asphalt mix-concrete overlay on top to seal in repairs.
“This particular asphalt you have seen is just a middle level we are putting down. It’s less-permeable so it provides a better base over the concrete,” Grow says.
And less water getting into the roadway means less potholes.
Another $125 million worth of work will start in the spring when warmer temperatures return. That’s when they’ll begin adding a third layer of new asphalt roadway to the worst parts of I-264 and I-64.
“Technically we are building back up the roadway surface,” Grow says.
So what about the areas that still have the old concrete? Could potholes still pop up this winter?
Grow says, “We aren’t anticipating that there are going to be problems because we did our best with concrete repair projects over the summer to cut out bad patches and replace them.”
