COLONIAL PARKWAY CLOSING BAD TIMING FOR YORK

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

DATE: MONDAY, March 22, 1993                   TAG: 9303220097
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: YORKTOWN                                LENGTH: Medium
COLONIAL PARKWAY CLOSING BAD TIMING FOR YORK
The planned closing this summer of part of the Colonial Parkway linking Yorktown and Williamsburg couldn't come at a worse time, York County leaders say.
York County has begun spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to revitalize Yorktown, and last year the county sought to boost the historic village by more closely linking it with its historic neighbor, Williamsburg.
York County pulled out of the Peninsula Tourism & Conference Bureau last year and is spending all this year's tourism dollars - more than $84,000 - with the Williamsburg Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Executive Director David Shulte.
"We put all our eggs in one basket," said York County supervisors Chairman Jere Mills. "Now, the corridor that brings these potential tourists is going to be closed. I'm not sure it has to be."
The National Park Service is closing a seven-mile section of the road for repairs soon after the July 4 weekend. The section will be closed for up to a year.
Leaders from the York County and Williamsburg area are drafting a letter urging the National Park Service to keep one lane open during reconstruction of the scenic road. And York County supervisors will huddle with Park Service Superintendent Alec Gould next week to discuss their complaints.
But Gould said keeping one lane open would add about $1 million to the $3.1 million project, could take twice as long and would create an engineering nightmare. He noted the parkway isn't built like an interstate highway with paved shoulders.
"The benefits are not worth the costs," Gould said. "That would mean cutting trees, cutting into hillsides, filling in ravines" to allow traffic to pass the construction. "We'd be destroying the very things we're here to protect."
The work will include replacing sunken concrete slabs first installed in the 1930s, improving drainage and installing guard rails.
Shulte said he hoped to soften that blow by distributing maps of the detour to Yorktown to Williamsburg-area hotels.
"We don't want to see people get discouraged and just not go to Yorktown because the parkway is closed," he said.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB