Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 21, 1992 TAG: 9201210056
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
GIVING 460 A GREEN LOOK
You could call it the greening of the U.S. 460 corridor.The idea stems from the corridor advisory council and is rooted in a joint effort of public officials and private landowners.
Trees and shrubs would fill the medians and line the street, lending a parklike atmosphere to what now often looks like a jumble of signs, parked cars, building fronts and shopping centers.
Students at the Virginia Tech Community Design Assistance Center, part of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, helped draw up the vision of the future along the busy and growing corridor.
The council will present the concept at 7 p.m. Wednesday to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and the Blacksburg and Christiansburg town councils.
The public is invited to attend the session at the New River Valley Mall community meeting room, near the inside entrance to Leggetts.
The local governments would help pay to landscape the medians and public right-of-way. Private landowners would be encouraged to use the overall plan to landscape their property, said Steve Via of the New River Valley Planning District Commission.
If, after the meeting, the three governments like the idea, the planning district can begin applying for state, federal and non-profit grants.
"Those trees are going to take years to grow. We can start small and keep adding on," Via said. He also hopes to garner local volunteer help on the materials to do the project.
"It's an area where everyone can invest some local pride, even during these recession times," Via said.
He said the plan, in the works for more than a year, is similar to Blacksburg's South Main Street landscaping project, which is also a public/private effort guided by an overall plan.
From the start, Via said, landowners along U.S. 460 have been involved in the process. At first, some were skeptical that they'd be made to do something they didn't want or simply couldn't afford, he said.
But that's far from what the council envisions. Essentially, Via said, the project would provide free landscape design assistance to any landowner in the corridor.
Several volunteered to use their properties as demonstration spots, where the students came up with specific designs tailored for those sites.
Via hopes to work with several more landowners this year on their specific properties.
"The landowners can go start digging holes and planting trees" anytime they want, Via said.
"Everybody's worried about the money. We're trying to emphasize that improvements can be made relatively cheaply."
The advisory council, formed as part of a court order after Christiansburg's contentious annexation a few years back, tried to set development standards for the corridor, Via said.
But so many buildings were already there, the council had to rethink its approach to improving the four-lane corridor, which stretches from Virginia 114 to the Blacksburg town limits.
The council, aided by landowners' advice, came up with the public-and-private landscaping effort, and asked the Tech students to help on the design.