Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990 TAG: 9005180356
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The road stays in the newest of the Transportation Department's six-year plans but is given little money because, engineers say, a proposal to route a part of it along the current Blue Ridge Parkway corridor is still being studied.
The allocations, approved Thursday at a Winchester meeting, give the eastern road only $500,000 for preliminary engineering in the 1990-91 spending year.
An estimated right-of-way cost of $45.2 million is not included in the new spending plan. Estimates have placed the eventual cost of the road at more than $150 million.
Included in a total proposed transportation budget of $2.1 billion is the first of special money approved by the General Assembly for improvements to U.S. 58 from Southwest Virginia to Tidewater.
Nearly $189 million from the sale of revenue bonds will be reserved for the U.S. 58 work. The legislature approved the eventual spending of $600 million on the road.
Also included in the six-year plan - but in name only - is the Roanoke-Blacksburg connector road that would run from Interstate 81 into the town of Blacksburg.
There is no money for the road and no estimate of its cost in the new spending plan.
Another valley project, the Roanoke River Parkway - planned spur from the Blue Ridge Parkway - also stays in the six-year plan but gets no money.
The road, a federal demonstration project, would run from the Blue Ridge Parkway to Explore, a planned living-history state park on the Roanoke River.
Original estimates of $15 million have increased to estimates of between $60 million and $100 million, thus delaying the road. The spending plan gives about $40 million to transportation projects in the department's Salem District.
The allocations include: Interstate highways, $3.9 million; primary roads, $21.5 million; urban streets, $12.6 million; rural secondary roads, $18.5 million, and public transit, $1.4 million.
by CNB