Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 14, 1993 TAG: 9310140189
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Most motorists can identify it quickly: Elm Avenue and Interstate 581.
Up to 30,000 vehicles a day travel Elm between I-581 and Jefferson Street. Approximately 60,000 vehicles travel I-581.
Downtown Roanoke leaders want interchange improvements placed at the top of the list of highway and street work in the city's thoroughfare plan.
The city's planning staff recommended that the interchange be ranked first among the needed projects.
But the city Planning Commission decided Wednesday to end the rankings and to group projects by category instead. It included I-581 and Elm Avenue in the highest priority category.
Because of the large cost for improving the interchange, the planners also recommended that the city try to get special federal funds to supplement or replace normal urban funds for such projects.
Commissioner John Bradshaw doesn't believe the city should spend millions of dollars of its alloted funds on the interchange at the expense of other projects.
"Rather than spending all of it on one or two projects, it could be used for several projects in the city," he said.
But Kim Kimbrough, executive director of Downtown Roanoke, said Wednesday the organization will try to persuade City Council to restore the top ranking for I-581 and Elm. Council will make the final decision.
Kimbrough said downtown leaders are even more upset about the provision that says the city will try to obtain supplemental funds for the interchange project.
"Let's don't wait 20 years for funds that might never come," Kimbrough said.
"It is our position that this project is so vital that it needs to be done without waiting on funds we may never get."
Trying to shift the interchange improvements to a regional funding category is not realistic, he said, because it would benefit mainly the city while providing only peripheral benefit to other localities.
The city shouldn't substitute "other futuristic road projects" for the interchange, which drives the vitality and fortunes of the largest commercial area in Virginia west of Richmond, he said.
"Let's not ignore what we have," he said.
Kimbrough said downtown businessmen and merchants have received complaints about the congestion.
"Allowing this gridlock to continue, or attempting to transfer the responsibility for improving this needed traffic enhancement to another entity and jurisdiction, will only exaggerate the problem, as well as retard the growing occupancy of office space and tourism in downtown," he said.
Even if the interchange is given top priority, it might be several year before the improvements can be made.
The city has committed its share of state urban-highway funds for the next five years - about $5.3 million a year - for other projects, such as the Peters Creek Road extension, Second Street/Gainsboro Road and Wells Avenue.
The commission did make one change in the thoroughfare plan that will please downtown leaders.
In the top category, it decided to include a proposal to reconstruct the Williamson Road portion of the Hunter Viaduct to provide three southbound and two northbound lanes and to remove the traffic signal at Shenandoah Avenue.
by CNB