History
The current SR 249 was assigned in the early 1970s to a portion of former State Route 33 in New Kent County. The western 11 miles (18 km) roughly follow the old Richmond-Williamsburg Stage Road, and it currently is named New Kent Highway. (The continuation east across SR 33 as State Route 632 is still named Old Stage Road.) The Old Stage Road was one of two routes heavily used by both Confederate and Union troops in 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War.
In the early 1970s, the new Interstate 64 was under construction east of Richmond. Although primarily following the alignment of US 60 in this area, traffic relief for other roadways was also anticipated. Nearby, SR 33 between Eltham and Quinton in New Kent County had an extraordinarily high accident rate due to heavy weekend traffic to waterfront points in eastern Virginia.
Upon partial completion, in the early 1970s, a stretch of newly-built Interstate 64 was opened early (from exit 205 to exit 220) as State Route 33 in order to divert traffic off one of the most accident-prone portions of the former winding and hilly two-lane route through New Kent Courthouse, which was renumbered State Route 249. Although the Interstate Highway was not ready for the heavy traffic load which would come from the through traffic of US 60, Exit 220 provides no easy access to US 60, so the new usage could be anticipated to primarily appeal only to lower volume of the SR 33 traffic. Richmond newspapers at the time praised the move and credited Virginia's highway officials with preventing continued carnage on the old highway.
Read more about this topic: Virginia State Route 249
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)