ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 TAG: 9611270042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: A Cuppa Joe
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY
A woman called to talk about the traffic on Interstate 581 and Hershberger Road near Valley View Mall.
She and a friend went to Wicker World at Towne Square shopping center a few weekends ago.
On their way in, they saw five cars crumpled in two rear-end collisions. On their way out, they saw four cars crumpled in two more.
In all, nine vehicles were damaged in the four wrecks.
"I hadn't been there since Wal-Mart opened," she said. "People are not watching, and they don't expect traffic to be backed up on I-581."
What will happen, she wondered, when the Christmas shopping season begins?
People have worried about traffic on Hershberger Road from the moment Valley View was proposed in 1978.
Back then, the mall site was the Huff Farm - open fields, a big barn and a historic house known as The Barrens. There wasn't a Wal-Mart or a Rack & Sack in sight.
`It's ridiculous'
Some residents wondered if the valley could support a retail development of the scope that Charlotte builder Henry Faison proposed.
They didn't envision a commercial city with motels, a medical clinic and restaurants on mall property, and retail suburbs like Towne Square, Circuit City at the old Crossroads Mall and fast food outlets and other service businesses nearby.
The Hershberger area produced $438 million in retail sales last year, according to Roanoke officials, and $880 million in economic ripple effects.
Its attractions help draw some 60,000 vehicles per day to the interchange at I-581 and Hershberger. Many of those vehicles try to feed onto the six lanes that Hershberger Road has been expanded to.
"It's ridiculous," says Roger Shelton, a tractor-trailer driver for a company off Aviation Drive. "The exit ramps ain't long enough."
Shelton makes four or five trips through the area each day. He loathes the afternoons, when traffic picks up, and he fears hitting someone from behind, which could cost him his job.
"That interchange was designed for a lot less traffic than it's carrying," admits Laura Bullock, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation in Salem.
Contrary to what you might think, it was not laid out by VDOT's summer interns.
"The design was appropriate for the time it was designed," she says. "No highway designer can foresee what's going to happen to the land around it."
Nothing compared to Tysons
It's an old story: Prime farmland becomes prime commercial land. Traffic increases, money is made and something else - peace, quiet, the two-lane road of an earlier time - is lost.
But maybe we should get over it.
Roanoke is in the early stages of design for a new ramp about a mile closer to downtown than the existing interchange at Hershberger and I-581, says Bob Bengtson, the city traffic engineer.
It will connect to Valley View Boulevard, provide easier access to Wal-Mart and relieve some of the backup at the current exit.
Construction probably will begin late in 1997 and take about a year to complete. That means we'll have at least another Christmas of backed-up traffic after this one. Valley View officials are expecting 40 percent more traffic this year than last, thanks to Wal-Mart and other new stores.
As the road sign says, prepare for backups.
We can approach this situation in a couple of ways: We can complain, get aggressive and refuse to cooperate with other motorists.
Or we can use alternate approaches like Peters Creek, Airport and Williamson roads, yield when the signs say "yield" and let other drivers merge when they're having trouble doing so.
It could be worse. Faison's Corner is nothing compared to Tysons Corner. And if I-73, I-66 and other highway dreams come true, things will get a lot more congested here.
Let's think about this when we're fighting the gridlock on Hershberger Road.
Let's chill.
What's your story? Call me at 981-3256 or send e-mail to kenn@roanoke.infi.net. Or write to me at P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010-2491.
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