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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990                   TAG: 9006070554
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRAFFIC CHANGES MADE TO PUT HALT TO SHORTCUT

The restrictions on turns and the additional stop signs are part of the city's compromise agreement with the Greater Deyerle Neighborhood Association on the Peters Creek Road Extension project.

The measures will affect motorists on Deyerle Road, Mud Lick Road, Brandon Avenue and Grandin Road, mainly in the morning and afternoon rush hours.

They include:

Four-way stop signs at Mud Lick Road and Deyerle Road.

No left turn from Brandon Avenue onto Deyerle Road will be permitted from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

No left turn from Deyerle Road onto Brandon Avenue from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday.

No left turn from Grandin Road onto Mud Lick Road from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday.

The neighborhood group, which originally fought the plan to extend Peters Creek Road, agreed not to oppose the project after the city agreed to implement the traffic control measures and widen Brandon Avenue.

Residents in the Deyerle-Mud Lick area feared that the new road would increase traffic on their streets because motorists will use their neighborhood as a shortcut between Brandon and Virginia 419.

Robert Bengtson, city traffic engineer, said the traffic control measures are being instituted now because "the neighborhood's concerns dealt not only with what will happen after Peters Creek Road is ultimately extended, but the present conditions."

City Council voted earlier this year to approve a plan that calls for Peters Creek Road to be extended by 2.5 miles from Melrose Avenue Northwest to Brandon Avenue.

The highway will intersect Brandon at Aerial Way Drive near the entrance to the Blue Ridge Park for Industry.

Council voted to ask the state Department of Transportation to begin preliminary engineering and planning for widening a 1.3 mile section of Brandon between Edgewood Street and the western city limits.

Construction on the Peters Creek Road extension is expected to begin in 1995 and be finished by 1997. Under the city's agreement with the neighborhood group, Brandon Avenue must be widened by the time Peters Creek Road is extended.

The city has also agreed to provide annual reports to the neighborhood group on traffic counts on Keagy Road, Cravens Creek Road, Mud Lick Road, Circle Drive and Deyerle Road.

When there is a 25 percent increase in traffic counts, the city and neighborhood group will develop additional traffic control measures to preserve the neighborhood's rural residential character.