MONTGOMERY BOARD SEES VIDEOS ON ROAD, LANDFILL, DEVELOPMENT

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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 9, 1993                   TAG: 9303090245
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
MONTGOMERY BOARD SEES VIDEOS ON ROAD, LANDFILL, DEVELOPMENT
All eyes were on the TV at the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday night.
The board watched three different videos - dealing with road problems, opposition to a possible new county landfill and economic development.
Both the Save Our Soil citizens group and the county school system used video recordings to warn the supervisors of the dangers on a stretch of Virginia 603 between Interstate 81 and U.S. 460 known as "the bluff."
The supervisors responded by asking Resident Engineer Dan Brugh of the Virginia Department of Transportation to study whether it would help to ask the state to take the secondary road into the primary system.
The narrow stretch of road, lying between a cliff and a 100-foot drop, is six-tenths of a mile from the Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School and carries 19 school buses per day, Gary Bishop, the school system's director of transportation told the board.
The road's narrow width - 15 feet, 10 inches at one point - and rocks protruding from the cliff have already contributed to several minor school-bus accidents, he said.
Brugh advised the board that the best way to deal with the road was with secondary-road funds because even if it was placed in the primary system its priority would be far lower than many other county projects, including improvements to Virginia 114 and Virginia 117.
Roughly five years ago the Transportation Department estimated it would cost $1.6 million to improve the road, Brugh said. It would take all of the county's secondary road money for two years to do the job, he said.
The video by Save Our Soil focused mainly on how construction of a rail line to the Roanoke Valley regional landfill has affected the Bradshaw Valley and North Fork Road area and what harm a possible new Montgomery County landfill in the same area might to.
Irene Leech, a spokeswoman for the group, told the supervisors it was hard to understand why they would want to build a new landfill, when they could save the county money by joining the Roanoke Valley Regional Landfill Authority and also give the county a voice on what trash is brought through the county on the rail line.
Hap Bonham from the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission previewed the commission's new economic development promotional video for the board. The video emphasized the educational institutions in and around the county.
Also Monday, the board:
Authorized the sale of $3 million in general obligation school bonds to partially finance the construction of the new Blacksburg elementary school, on which construction should begin within the next few weeks.
Approved an application for community development block grant funds to help pay for a $1.29 million sewer project in the Upper Slate Branch and Merrimac areas of the county.
Passed a resolution in advance of next week's Department of Transportation hearing in Salem, endorsing construction of a U.S. 460 bypass between Blacksburg and Christiansburg and to I-81 and of the direct link "smart road" between Roanoke and Virginia Tech.
Supervisor Larry Linkous, however, suggested that residents may have changed their minds about not including an interchange in the Ellett Valley for the link.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB