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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 4, 1990                   TAG: 9005040771
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

END OF ERA?

For some Roanokers, it's a day that will live in infamy. For other Roanokers, it's the beginning of a march toward a future so bright that the city's star will shine for miles around.

What happens today, of course, is the closing of the western leg of the Hunter Viaduct into downtown Roanoke.

We won't try to explain what it is about Roanoke that makes so seemingly mundane a matter so volatile an issue. That task probably would require the combined efforts of a sociologist, a demographer and a political scientist, with perhaps an historian, economist and psychologist called in for consultation.

What we do know is that the closing is part of a plan:

To build an office tower that will help ensure that Roanoke's largest locally owned business stays in town;

To construct a convention center that will help attract trade-show business to Roanoke;

To make it possible for the historic Hotel Roanoke to reopen, under the auspices of Virginia Tech; and

To improve (ultimately, granted) downtown traffic flow, after completion of a Second Street bridge over the Norfolk Southern tracks.

Now, isn't that worth the loss of an exit ramp?