CHESAPEAKE, Va. — April marks six months since a section of Elbow Road has been closed due to construction on the Elbow Road project.
The $84 million project spans across two cities, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. Construction has been underway since September 2024, and work on the Stumpy Lake Bridge on Elbow Road replacement on Elbow Road started in fall 2025.
Jake Lewis, City of Chesapeake engineer manager, is the project manager for the Chesapeake side of the project. He expects Elbow Road to open up to traffic in August, with the bridge fully complete a few months after that.
"The bridge needed to be replaced because of its age, and we had done some repairs in the past to it during some hurricanes, so overall just to improve the structural integrity of it," Jake Lewis said.
While the portion of Elbow Road is closed, drivers can use a detour that goes from Centerville Turnpike to Lynnhaven Parkway to Indian River Road and vice versa.
"They’re working on top to do the bridge rails, they’re backfilling the shoulders, and putting caps on the sheet pile wall," Lewis said.
Jaxson Brown lives just off Elbow Road on the Virginia Beach side. He owns a barber shop in Virginia Beach and another business in Chesapeake, and he said Elbow Road has been a part of his commute for as long as he can remember.
"I’m on this road three or four times a day," Jaxson Brown said. "I grew up in this community, and I remember taking the sports bus home from school and we used to take that back road right there. So, I’m excited to see what it’s gonna look like," Brown said.
A spokesperson from Virginia Beach gave News 3 an update on Virginia Beach's side of the Elbow Road Project. The project is in Phase II-B and II-C, which will realign Elbow Road into a four-lane section extending from Salem Road to Stumpy Lake and relocate the Elbow Road and Indian River Road intersection.
A key feature of the Virginia Beach project is the replacement of the existing 20-foot bridge over the North Landing River with a new 1,050-foot bridge that spans the wetlands and the 100-year floodplain. The new roadway will have a posted speed limit of 45 mph and will feature 8-foot sidewalks, on-road bike lanes, LED streetlights, noise barriers, and storm drainage ponds.
The Virginia Beach portion of the Elbow Road project is scheduled to be complete in March 2028.
For detour drivers like Brown, he is patiently awaiting the end of the project.
"It looks like what they’re doing, they’re doing an excellent job. And I’ll just say ‘Hey. Take a breath. Leave a few minutes early. And you know, take one day at a time," Brown said.
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