Elevating Roads in Norfolk, Virginia
The Norfolk, Virginia Department of Public Works invested $2.4 million in 2013-2014 to improve two waterfront streets, Brambleton and Colley Avenues, and reduce flood impacts. To reduce tidal flooding of the roadway the city elevated and widened a section of Brambleton Avenue and rebuilt the intersection of Brambleton and Colley Avenues. Brambleton Avenue is a principal artery in downtown Norfolk that runs along the Elizabeth River and crosses over an inlet called the Hague. The project was implemented to address recurrent flooding that was already occurring in the area, which had caused frequent road closures. At the time of initiating the improvement project in 2012, the area was flooding 2 to 3 times more frequently than it did in 1980, and was routinely flooded for 200 to 300 hours per year. The project was identified in Norfolk’s Coastal Resilience Strategy as an example of structural projects that has successfully helped mitigate flood risk.
Norfolk is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan region of Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay and is bypassed by two rivers, the Elizabeth and Lafayette rivers. The city has 144 miles of shoreline, including 7 miles along the Chesapeake Bay. The city is the home to the Norfolk Naval Station, one of the largest naval bases in the U.S. The Hampton Roads region is considered to be one of the areas in the U.S. most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Norfolk has a low-lying topography and land in the area is subsiding. Sea levels in the area have risen 1.5 feet over the past century and are rising faster than anywhere else along the East Coast. Some areas of the community already regularly flood at high tide, and the area is susceptible to coastal hazards such as flooding, erosion, hurricanes and nor’easters.
Prior to and concurrent with the implementation of the Brambleton Avenue project, multiple planning and assessment documents for Norfolk and the Hampton Roads region had examined long-term threats from sea-level rise and identified the need to adapt infrastructure, including roads. These efforts included the Hampton Roads region’s long-range transportation plan, a federally-sponsored vulnerability assessment pilot project for the Hampton Roads Region, a Recurrent Flooding Study for Tidewater Virginia, Norfolk’s 2012-2016 Capital Improvement Plan, and Norfolk’s general plan updated in 2013 (known as “plaNorfolk 2030”), to name several. Norfolk also invested in other projects to elevate roads and otherwise mitigate street flooding citywide, including a project to elevate a roadway over an inlet off Lafayette River near Haven Creek, at cost of $1 million, and the city budgeted additional funds to address street flooding citywide, considering cost-effective strategies to address sea-level rise and nuisance flooding.
More recently, the City of Norfolk participated in the former 100 Resilient Cities initiative, producing a Resilience Strategy, developed an additional element for plaNorfolk known as Norfolk Vision 2100, and completed a comprehensive update of its zoning ordinance with new overlay tools to ensure better protection of high-risk areas and to drive new development to lower-risk areas.
This Adaptation Clearinghouse entry was originally prepared with support from the Federal Highway Administration. This entry was last updated on June 12, 2020.
Publication Date: February 2014
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- City of Norfolk, Virginia
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