Pinners Point Interchange


The Pinners Point interchange is the interchange complex in Portsmouth, Virginia, where State Route 164 intersects U.S. Route 58 as it leaves the Midtown Tunnel and turns southerly on the Martin Luther King Freeway. Owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation, it is maintained by Elizabeth River Crossings as part of a 58-year concession agreement in connection with the Elizabeth River Tunnels Project. One of the major parts of the interchange is the West Norfolk Bridge, which connects the Western Freeway to the other two highways.

History

Since the late 1970s, various environmental impact statements have been prepared by VDOT and the Federal Highway Administration for these projects, and various location and design public hearings have been conducted by VDOT, and various public hearings have been held by VDOT while these studies have been underway. The most recent EIS was completed and approved by FHWA in 1996, and it included the Pinners Point Interchange and the Parallel Midtown Tunnel. Generally, the "shelf life" of a completed and FHWA-approved Final Environmental Impact Statement on a project is 3 years, and an EIS Reevaluation study and document needs to be prepared after that point if the project is not yet under construction, before the project can be constructed.
The Pinners Point Interchange in Portsmouth, has been completed, with all roadways fully opened by September 2005, and the prime contractor was Tidewater Skanska, Inc. This project is the extension of the SR 164 Western Freeway to the southerly Midtown Tunnel approach highway, including a new three-level directional interchange with the MLK Freeway, and the project includes reconstructing the MLK Freeway between London Boulevard and the Midtown Tunnel, including a full local interchange with all three legs of the highway complex at the east edge of Port Norfolk.

Description

As US 58 exits the Midtown Tunnel, it comes to the full Y-interchange, with the Martin Luther King Freeway to the left, and SR 164 to the right. Traffic continuing onto the Western Freeway enters a slip ramp and curves right to miss the entire Port Norfolk neighborhood. The bridge then curves back to the right and continues northwestward as the Western Freeway.