VDOT targets Hatton Ferry, rest areas, jobs

RICHMOND — Roadside grass will grow higher, 19 Interstate highway rest stops will close, the Hatton Ferry will cease service and highway workers will lose jobs as Virginia’s road money dries up.

Transportation Commissioner David Ekern outlined recommendations for funding cuts that are being presented Wednesday and today to the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

The worst economic downturn in 70 years, declining revenues from gasoline taxes and reductions in federal highway are forcing Virginia to trim $2.6 billion in construction, service and administrative cuts over the next six years.

Construction loses $2 billion in the cuts. The rest comes from consolidations and job cuts within the Virginia Department of Transportation and cuts to services and some maintenance not considered essential.

One notable proposed cut would shut down the Hatton Ferry, which has operated on the James River near Scottsville since the 1870s.

“We are proposing that the service on the Hatton Ferry be eliminated completely,” VDOT spokesman Lou Hatter said.

VDOT bought the ferry in the 1980s and pays a contractor to ferry cars across the river on weekends from mid-April through mid-October.

By stopping the ferry service, VDOT would save an estimated $21,000 per year. The cut would go into effect July 1.

The Hatton Ferry is a historic relic of a bygone era, said Margaret O’Bryant, librarian of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society. “I’m very sorry to hear about this,” she said.

O’Bryant pointed out that the Hatton Ferry is one of only two pole-driven ferries still in operation in the United States.

Ferries played an important role along the James River, going back to the days of the European settlers, she said. The Hatton Ferry, O’Bryant added, has a long and fascinating history of its own.

In 1972, the ferry was destroyed by Hurricane Agnes, but a new one was built by the Department of Highways and dedicated in September 1973 with the help of Richard Thomas, star of TV’s “The Waltons.”

The newly built ferry was sunk and destroyed again in 1985 when the James River flooded. The following year, VDOT launched a sturdier metal ferry.

The historical society has championed the Hatton Ferry for decades. The organization has built a kiosk on the site and renovated the operator’s building so it appears as it did in the late 1800s.

“It comes as a big shock and a big disappointment,” said Steven Meeks, president of the historical society

Many of the rest areas targeted for closure will be in the state’s most populous region, Northern Virginia. Officials had initially proposed closing 25 rest areas, but relented on six of them after public hearings.

The bulk of the rest area closures are in northern Virginia, Commissioner Ekern said, partly because of the abundance of commercial alternatives such as restaurants, hotels and gas stations at interchanges off the freeway.

Rest areas in the Charlottesville area likely will be spared. VDOT opted to keep open its two local welcome centers, located along U.S. 64 at mile marker 105 in the eastbound lanes and mile marker 113 in the west bound lanes.

Ekern said some of the closed rest areas might be reopened under commercial management provided Congress changes an existing federal prohibition against it.

“Virginia, with its strong [public-private partnership laws] I think would be well positioned to move very quickly if the law were amended,” Ekern said in a 45-minute telephone conference with reporters.

Most of the 23 rest areas to remain open are along rural stretches of Interstates 81 and 64. Ekern said officials felt there should be no more than 120 miles between rest stops.

A preliminary proposal to eliminate 225 truck parking spaces along Interstate highways was dropped. VDOT will retain all 783 of the slots where drivers of big rigs can pull over for a brief rest. Ekern said the two-hour parking limit will be expanded, but that overnight parking won’t be allowed.

Mowing along Interstates and primary and secondary state highways will be scaled back to just three times per growing season, and then only a few feet off the pavement, not to the edge of the state right of way.

Safety and motorist assistance patrols — the white vehicles that resemble police cruisers except for the amber flashing lights instead of blue ones — will be unchanged in northern Virginia, reduced in Hampton Roads and VDOT’s Fredericksburg districts, and eliminated everywhere else effective July 1.

“Our recommendation is to scale our service back to about 2001 levels,’’ Ekern said. The cutbacks will save about $6.5 million.

The popular Jamestown Ferry, which links one of the state’s best-known historic sites with the Scotland community on the James River’s south shore, will continue to run round-the-clock. Officials initially proposed cutting its operating hours by five to eight hours daily.

The quaint Hatton Ferry which has operated on the James River near Scottsville since the 1870s, will be eliminated. The tiny ferry that operates now only on weekends during warm weather is among the last two poled ferries in the nation, according to an Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society Web site. Service will be reduced to the Merry Point Ferry in Lancaster County and to the Sunnybank Ferry on the Wicomico River in Northumberland County.

VDOT will also take deep cuts, reducing its classified work force by about 730 employees — to 7,500 — through layoffs and attrition by July 2010. The first round of layoffs comes next month with more layoff notices due in July and December.