Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 20, 1994 TAG: 9402180064
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-12 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS< STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The downside: Commuters lose two hours each weekday. Their high-mileage cars age faster. And weather conditions - particularly during winter - can make the trip harrowing.
On the other hand, local commuters could be steering bumper cars through an urbanized area such as Northern Virginia. By comparison, the round-trip, 80-mile, Western Virginia drive between the two valleys seems peaceful.
Like it or not, however, many commuters have little choice.
For 11 years, Carol Nickerson made the same dawn-to-dusk trip - in reverse. She drove from Roanoke County to attend, then to work for, Virginia Tech.
"I used to tell my husband that during the work week I would hear [National Public Radio's] Bob Edwards' voice more than his," Nickerson said.
Last year, the Nickersons moved to Blacksburg. Now it's his turn to hit the workday road to Roanoke.
"I really don't mind it," said David Nickerson, an administrator at Patrick Henry High School. "It gives me a little thinking time."
According to the 1990 Census, more than 5,000 people travel between the two valleys each weekday. About four-fifths of the traffic flows downhill from the New River Valley to the Roanoke Valley.
"People gotta go where they gotta go," said Susan Brooker-Gross, a Virginia Tech urban geographer. "There's no single town large enough or diverse enough to have the kind of job they want."
"I made a conscious decision," said Gary Collier, an investment broker who lives in Radford and works in Roanoke. "I wanted to live in the New River Valley."
"You just don't have time to spend with your family, or for other things like exercise and recreation. It takes time away from your office, too."
Collier said of 10 houses on his street, four are occupied by Roanoke commuters.
No intervalley public or private group transportation is available.
Roanoke's Valley Metro public transportation agency maintains a list of commuters seeking carpools. Currently, there are but 60 names of Roanoke-New River valley commuters on the list, said Amanda Snapp of Valley Metro.
Other economy-minded drivers have informally organized carpools. Yet the majority of daily commuter trips are solo - one car, one passenger.
The area's lack of vanpools has more to do with inertia than economics, said Doug McDonald of VPSI, a private commuter transportation company.
"It could happen there - very successfully," he said. "But we've never seemed to drum up any interest."
David Nickerson is one of many commuters who has found carpooling just too inconvenient. "Our schedules are so entrenched. That's the whole problem."
Opportunity and necessity drive commuters to pass one another on Interstate 81 like shoppers on a department store escalator.
Virginia Tech and Radford University draw faculty and students from the Roanoke Valley, which does not have a public college or university.
Meanwhile, Roanoke's larger job market attracts New River Valley workers, some of whom have been squeezed out of work by the tight local economy.
There's also a positive side to commuting. Carol Nickerson said her daily commute for 11 years between Roanoke County and Blacksburg was in some ways "the best time I had all day. In my job [as assistant to the president of Virginia Tech] I need thinking time."
As she drove, Nickerson would use her Dictaphone, listen to the radio, compose shopping lists or merely "look at the beautiful scenery" along I-81.
But the trip was also physically tiresome, and absorbed personal time. Most errands had to be postponed until weekends.
A supportive family willing to help with domestic chores was essential for Nickerson. Many people - women in particular - have passed up educational or professional opportunities because commuting to Roanoke or the New River Valley would place too much stress on their family life, she said.
"It disturbs me sometimes when I think about what percentage of my life has been lost. But it's a necessary evil," Collier said. "It's a compromise, between your career and your family."
Nickerson was relieved to give up her commute last year because she believes I-81 has become more dangerous. "The truck traffic increased dramatically. . . . I began to feel more and more squeezed, as if they were coming into my back window."
Nickerson is among other intervalley commuters who strongly advocate the proposed "smart road" spur connecting I-81 and Blacksburg.
"They need to put the "smart road" on the front burner," said Lynn Davis, a Virginia Tech employee who carpools daily from Roanoke to Blacksburg.
by CNB