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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040345
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: PEARISBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

SUPERVISORS TO SEEK ROAD PRIORITY CHANGE

The Giles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday evening to change priorities in the county's six-year road improvement plan. A final decision cannot be made until the plan is presented to county residents for their approval at a May hearing.

The change will bump improvements on Virginia 711 between Bluff City and Narrows to a lower priority in favor of repairing the bridge on Virginia Route 623, which crosses the New River near Pembroke.

Highway Engineer Dan Brugh said the shift was necessary because the Highway Department has approved use of the bridge in its present condition only until 1994.

After that, he said, "all bets are off." Recent reinforcement of the bridge's concrete supports do little, he said, to improve the bridge's condition.

Should the improvements to Virgina 711 proceed as planned, he said, bridge repairs probably would not be completed by 1994. At that point, he said, the Highway Department would have two options: to close the bridge or to reduce the weight limit from 10 tons to two or three tons.

Before the latest repairs to the bridge, school bus drivers used to stop and let students walk across before the drivers themselves proceeded alone in the bus.

Larger school buses still are not allowed to use the bridge. Both options would close the bridge to bus traffic, which would mean a long detour to safer crossings.

Brugh said that although improvements to Virginia 711 only call for widening rural roadway, the project would be expensive because $250,000 of the $800,000 budgeted would be used to modify Virginia 100.

Modifications are needed, he said, because specifications require that Virginia 711 intersect the larger road at a right angle.

Supervisor Samuel "Ted" Timberlake said highway department records show that each day only 50 vehicles use Virginia 711 as opposed to 321 that cross the bridge.

Timberlake said that though he hated to see improvements in the central district lose their place on the list, he would vote for the change.

In other matters, board Chairman Richard Williams presented a check for $1,000 to the Rev. Robert Putt of Pearisburg Baptist Church for a homeless shelter he and his group are establishing.

by CNB