Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 20, 1993 TAG: 9308200046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Robert A. Williams of Martinsville, in his second meeting representing Roanoke and surrounding counties, joined in the unanimous approval of the controversial widening of Wells Avenue at the Hotel Roanoke.
"From everything I saw of it, I could not see damage to the neighborhood," Williams said of Roanoke's historic and predominantly black Gainsboro neighborhood.
He said three city officials - public works director Bill Clark, economic chief Brian Wishneff and hotel contracts overseer Alvin Nash - drove to Martinsville on Tuesday to brief him before Thursday's vote.
Unless opponents file a lawsuit, the Wells Avenue road changes are about to begin after a yearlong political storm among black Roanokers.
A consulting engineer for the city said the state Transportation Department should start acquiring properties soon along Wells west of Williamson Road.
Construction could be up for bid as early as February, he said, for the tree-lined boulevard touted as a major entryway to the city, the hotel and its proposed conference center.
Evelyn Bethel, Gainsboro's leading opponent to the four-lane roads, asked the board to delay its vote and gather more information on noise and air pollution that could come from the highways.
She also asked - as she has of every other governing body that's taken up the Wells project - that engineers find another way to funnel traffic around downtown. She supports the Hotel Roanoke's renovation but contends the road will detract from it, as well as from her neighborhood.
City engineers say downtown traffic will be tangled by the year 2010 without the two new "inner loops." The Wells widening will take two businesses, eight commercial buildings and two homes, which may be moved.
Bethel is checking whether her coalition of road opponents could appeal the board's decision. Historic Gainsboro Preservation District, of which Bethel is president, has joined with the Roanoke branch of the NAACP and the People's Voters League to oppose the roads.
"It is not over," Bethel said of their fight. She hopes to know by next week whether they will go to court to halt the roads.
A plea sent to the Transportation Department by Historic Gainsboro's attorney in Washington, said: "What is happening in the Gainsboro area is part of a pattern of development that has forced African-American communities in the Roanoke area to give up their neighborhoods and their homes in order to create jobs, highways and structures for other constituencies."
Bethel said she was pleased that board members discussed Wells Avenue with her for a half-hour and openly talked about neighborhood issues. "That's far more time than Roanoke City Council gave us," she said.
Fourteen of the board's 16 members approved the plans for Wells. Two members were absent.
At a late-July public hearing, the Transportation Department received 61 comments against the project and 10 in favor. In addition, Bethel submitted petitions bearing the names of 378 people against it.
Secretary of Transportation John Milliken told Bethel that it was the city's eagerness to broaden Wells that persuaded the board to OK it.
At the meeting and in a later phone interview, Williams warned that he might oppose funding for the Second Street/Gainsboro Road traffic loop that would hook up with the new Wells.
"I think that this is extremely disruptive to that neighborhood," he said of plans for Second Street. "The logic of it does not make sense to me. It's going to come up to the board for funding again, and I can recommend against it. It seems to me greatly problematic."
by CNB