ROANOKE TIMES

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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 26, 1990                   TAG: 9004260519
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE                                LENGTH: Short


ROAD-LOBBYING GROUP SCHEDULES MEETING

Graysonites for Progressive Change, an organization lobbying for an improved two-lane U.S. 58 through Grayson County rather than the proposed four-lane improvements, will meet today at 7:30 p.m. at the Grayson County Public Library.

Besides the U.S. 58 issue, part of the project approved by the 1989 General Assembly for four-laning U.S. 58 from Lee County east to Virginia Beach, the group will discuss support for county land-use planning. The meeting is open to the public.

Local governing bodies in the Mount Rogers Planning District, reacting to the letter-writing campaign by Graysonites for Progressive Change, have all formally renewed their support in recent months for four-laning the entire highway through Virginia.

Del. G.C. Jennings, D-Marion, an early advocate of the U.S. 58 project, told state transportation officials at the annual Bristol District roads hearing April 6 in Abingdon that the opposition to the four-laning in Grayson County has largely been from outsiders with vacation homes there and an interest in keeping it rural.

Susan Francis of Independence, a member of the Graysonites group, took issue with his statement. Out of more than 500 signatures on petitions supporting an improved two-lane U.S. 58 rather than the four-laning, she said, only 11 lived outside Grayson or Washington counties.

- Southwest bureau



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