Newport News eyes 28th Street bridge improvements to reconnect communities separated by I-664
Newport News is trying to improve connectivity between the Southeast Community and the downtown and Yard District area, and the city recently secured a $1 million federal grant to help make that happen.
Decades ago, the construction and expansion of Interstate 664 created a physical barrier that almost completely cut off southeast Newport News from the downtown area.
Now funded by a grant, obtained through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program, the city will design plans to revamp the 28th Street bridge into a safe and convenient connection between these two neighborhoods.
City spokesperson Kim Bracy said the $1 million will finance “a feasibility study” on connecting the two communities.
“We are exploring pedestrian/bicycle access across I-664/CSX railroad,” she said in a statement. “The study will include an alternatives analysis, conceptual design, and budget estimate. Once the study is complete we will have a clear understanding of the scope of the project.”
In an August letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg supporting the grant proposal, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said the project seeks to transform the structure into a multimodal bridge with a publicly accessible park and recreation space. Warner said the improvements would create greater accessibility to economic opportunities, businesses, grocery stores, retail and health care facilities for Southeast Community residents, who he said have historically faced “substantial hurdles in the equitable distribution of resources and economic opportunity.”
“The interstate was largely constructed along the previous formal redlining boundary that separated the low-income neighborhoods of Newport News with the rest of the city,” Warner wrote. “While the practice of redlining was outlawed in April 1968, the planning and construction of I-664 created a physical barrier separating the previously redlined communities from the rest of Newport News.”
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Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott of Newport News announced the grant award last week, saying the the barrier isolated the community from resources and economic opportunities. In a joint statement, the Democratic lawmakers said they were “glad to secure this funding that will rectify past infrastructure wrongs and help bring communities together.”
Last year, the city floated several potential areas along I-664 where it was considering pedestrian and bicycle improvements, including where I-664 intersects with 39th, 34th, 35th, 30th, 28th, 26th and 25th streets.
Bracy said as soon as the city gets through the agreements and the money is provided, it will start the feasibility study.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s grant program has already awarded money for similar planning studies in Norfolk and Richmond. Norfolk received a $1.6 million grant last year to help it study the removal of an Interstate 264 ramp that cut an area of public housing in the St. Paul’s section of the city off from commercial downtown areas.
The reconnection program is meant to help mitigate some of the damage that highway expansion caused in cities across the country. The construction of new highways and transit infrastructure in the 1950s through 1970s often cut through predominantly Black neighborhoods, displacing households and isolating remaining neighborhoods.
Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com
