Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993 TAG: 9311240284
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Such a federal coast-to-coast highway is one of four options now being examined by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Virginia and 11 other states in what is properly named the TransAmerica Transportation Corridor Study.
The simplest of the options under study would involve construction of an upgraded highway built to interstate standards and incorporating some basic intelligent vehicle system - "smart road" - technologies. Longer combination trucks such as triple trailers could use such a road.
Other alternatives being considered involve more sophisticated "smart road" technologies, tilt trains, high-speed rail and magnetic levitation (maglev) trains.
The TransAmerica feasibility study should be completed by the end of March, according to Richard Lockwood, a planning engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation. The study will look at what it would cost to build highways or rail lines using each of the four types of technology.
Future studies would determine the actual location of the corridors along which the new roads or rail lines would be located, Lockwood said.
Norfolk and Los Angeles have been selected as the end-points for whatever option or options are picked because of their deep-water ports.
For the feasibility study, four 50-mile-wide corridors were selected. Three of them pass through the center of Virginia. The fourth, which would accommodate the high-speed rail line or maglev trains, heads north connecting the dense population centers along the East Coast before turning west.
High-speed rail and maglev are technologies primarily designed to carry passengers and that's the reason their planning corridor runs through the cities, Lockwood said.
However, the other three options being considered could definitely have an impact on Southwestern Virginia. Among the several Virginia corridors selected are ones that follow U.S. 58, U.S. 460 and Interstate 64.
Construction of any of the four options would be many years in the future, Lockwood said. But planners won't necessarily settle for only one of the four options.
"We're approaching a time now when the traveling public is look for transportation options," Lockwood said.
Donald Drew, a professor of civil engineering at Virginia Tech, says its a mistake, though, to even consider building a system using maglev trains.
Drew is a booster of magnetic levitation as a means of travel but believes maglev systems should be based on personal transportation rather than trainsl.
There's no reason to link maglev cars together in a train, he said. "You're\ going back to the 19th century instead of the 21st century" Drew said.
In a maglev transportation system, vehicles are suspended by electromagnetic\ forces a few inches above a track and are propelled along the track by those\ same forces. Maglev is an American idea that has already been developed by the\ Germans and Japanese and could be in commercial operation in those countries\ before the end of the decade.
Drew believes the medians of interstate highways should be used to construct\ tracks for maglev propelled cars. Such computer-controlled vehicles would move\ along at extremely high speeds only a few feet apart.
People want to be able to take their cars on long trips, and using maglev\ for personal transportation would allow them to do that while providing the\ benefits of maglev for the majority of the trip, Drew said.
A maglev system for personal vehicles would be a lot cheaper to build than a system for trains, Drew said. "It would probably cost the gross national product to build [a maglev train track] from Norfolk to Los Angeles," Drew said.
Drew, however, has not had a voice in the TransAmerica study. The only study he's done was for the People's Republic of China, he said.
Both the TransAmerica Corridor and a new Interstate 73 are roads that could mean much to the future of Southwest Virginia.
Interstate 73, a road that would run from Detroit to Charleston, S.C., was identified in the 1991 federal highway law as one of the gaps in the interstate highway system that needs to be filled. The '91 law established 21 high-priority interstate corridors and one was I-73.
Only West Virginia, among the states through which I-73 would pass, has established a definite location for the proposed road. Rep. Nick Rahall included language in the 1991 bill that designated U.S. 52 between Bluefield and Huntington as the route for I-73 in West Virginia and set aside $118.4 million for initial planning.
Previous news reports have indicated that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., was a driving force behind I-73, but Byrd's office said he is not involved in the project.
The origin of the I-73 concept is unclear. Some say it began with some Ohio business people. Regardless, the impetus for I-73 is now concentrated in Bluefield, where the Interstate 73 Association has been formed.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has not yet picked a route for I-73 and is considering four, all starting in Bluefield.
One would run down U.S. 460 to Roanoke where it would pick up U.S. 220 to the North Carolina line. Another would follow U.S. 460 to Christiansburg and from there down Virginia 8 to the North Carolina line; and a third would use the current Interstate 77 roadway.
But the route that Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, is most interested in would run farther west, possibly along Virginia 16, in Grayson, Smyth and Tazewell counties, entering North Carolina around Mouth of Wilson in Grayson County.
The western route, he said, could work in conjunction with a rebuilt U.S. 58 to provide the most economic development benefit to Southwest Virginia.
Greg Edwards covers coal, agriculture, transportation and utilities for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB