BLACKSBURG PLANNERS AGREE ON TRAFFIC-CONGESTION RELIEF

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992                   TAG: 9202270180
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
BLACKSBURG PLANNERS AGREE ON TRAFFIC-CONGESTION RELIEF
The town's Planning Commission took just 1 1/2 hours to reach a consensus on what to do about traffic congestion in the Nellies Cave Road area.
The road became a problem when Montgomery County condemned land and paved the gravel and dirt road to the town limits. This increased traffic through a town residential neighborhood.
The key in the future will be a third connector road from Ellett Valley to re-route county traffic into Blacksburg.
The key in the present will be patience.
The six members of the commission at the work session Tuesday accepted all but one of the 11 staff recommendations with few changes. The commission is expected to approve them at its Tuesday meeting.
"How can you say no," said Ray Chisholm when the proposed town-county connector road was opened for discussion. The commission accepted it, in principle.
Because of the county's reluctance to use its secondary road funds for a new connector, it suggested using existing roads and connecting the link through subdivisions.
Additionally, the town's own plans call for existing roads to be examined to see if they can be upgraded to handle more traffic.
The plan is to be placed on the town's official street map or in the comprehensive plan to ensure its eventual construction.
But Joe Jones reminded the other commissioners that using subdivisions roads could mean waiting decades for development to occur and that the links would meet with local opposition.
That increases the importance of short-term alternatives. The commission did recommend continued study of traffic flow in the Nellies Cave Road area, increased traffic enforcement in the area and leting the town's Traffic Committee make final decisions on any traffic sign changes.
What the commission did not accept was the staff recommendation that no structural changes be made to neighborhood roads until everything else was decided.
"I hate to say no changes," Frances Parsons said. "We might have to do something for safety reasons."
Commission Chairman William Claus instructed the planning staff to revise that section of the recommendations. However, the board did accept the intent of the offending section - to express the town's objection to the task force's proposal to make Grissom Lane a one-way street.
That was something even the task force could accept.
"It was always just that - one of the options to be hooked at," Bob Rogers, a member of the task force, said in addressing the commission after its discussion. "It was not a policy per se. But it somehow got pulled out. We had only identified it as one of the options."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB