Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991 TAG: 9103120390
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Council asked City Manager Randy Smith to draft a letter to department officials stating their objection to widening Brandon beyond Keagy Road.
The Peters Creek Road extension project requires that Brandon be widened, including a portion that crosses the Salem corporate limits and becomes Apperson Drive. The widening of that portion would require that the department take portions of parking space from several businesses on Apperson, Smith said.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Councilman Alex Brown said. Brown said the proposed plans reminded him a request several years ago to four-lane Main Street and remove all the downtown parking "just to expedite traffic."
Council balked in January at the department's request to use $250,000 to $320,000 of its state highway and road-allocation money to create a single or dual left turn from Brandon/Apperson onto Keagy Road.
Council members said then that the Brandon/Apperson widening would worsen an already congested traffic situation at intersections in those portions of the project that will spill into Salem.
Mayor Jim Taliaferro said he would be all for widening Brandon/Apperson if the department would carry the widening all the way up to Riverside Drive, near the Graham-White Manufacturing Co.
by CNB