Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993 TAG: 9303100111
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
COUNCIL SEEKS 4-LANED VA. 177 OUT TO INTERSTATE 81
City Council has requested that the Virginia Department of Transportation widen Virginia 177 to four lanes from the city limits to Exit 109 of Interstate 81.Calling the nearly two-mile stretch of road a "primary access route" to the city and to Radford University, council unanimously approved a resolution Monday asking the highway department to move the improvement proposal onto its funding schedule.
The city already has asked that its Urban Project highway money be used to expand the last four blocks of two-lane highway inside the city, where it becomes Tyler Avenue.
Council has approved a cooperative agreement with Montgomery County to regulate development along the 177 corridor between the city limits and I-81. Radford Community Hospital also is planning to relocate there.
Councilwoman Polly Corn, who's on the city's Route 177 Committee, said a city contingent, including herself and council and committee colleague Bobby Nicholson, will to plead the city's case for the improvement proposal March 16 at the highway district office.
The delegation will include City Manager Robert Asbury, City Engineer Jim Hurt, officials from Radford University and Radford Community Hospital, Jim Moore of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, and Steve Via of the New River Valley Planning District Commission.
In other matters, council heard a report from Simmons Cable TV General Manager Erv Stauss, who predicted impending federal cable TV regulations could stifle future programming and service improvements.
Stauss, who was invited to council to respond to cable TV service complaints, said Reagan-era deregulation helped cable provide better programming and more channels.
Congress overrode a presidential veto last year to give the Federal Communications Commission authority to re-regulate the cable industry. The FCC has not yet implemented specific rules.
Stauss said Simmons has begun offering a digital radio service and is looking at expanding pay-per-view to a 24-hour-per-day schedule.
Council also heard from Taylor Cole of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance, who said 350 additional Radford Army Ammunition Plant layoffs, scheduled to be announced this week, will raise the region's unemployment rate "dangerously close to 11 percent."
He said highly trained professionals who lose their jobs in the New River Valley don't want the kinds of low-paying, low-skill jobs common in other areas of Virginia.
"People who are laid off from the arsenal, the engineers, the white-collar workers, people [who have] technical skills . . . they're not going to be interested in those type of jobs, and we shouldn't expect them to be," he said.
Cole said bringing a lot of unskilled, minimum-wage jobs into the area could have a negative economic impact over the long run, especially if the company fails.
He said the alliance planned to focus on "bringing in the best jobs we possibly can."
Alliance representatives will go to Germany this spring to contact firms that will supply parts and equipment to a new BMW factory in Greenville, S.C., he said. Cole said he'd like to see some of those suppliers locate in the New River Valley.