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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 20, 1994                   TAG: 9402250047
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-12   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

VALLEY WORKERS HIT THE ROAD

SNOWVILLE to Pearisburg, Pilot to Dublin, Shawsville to Radford, Floyd to Blacksburg - before dawn's early light, the New River Valley's mobile labor force heads for work.

Viewed from midair, the thousands of commuter trips that occur each workday would make the New River Valley look like a giant cross-stitch pattern.

Here, in a predominantly rural area characterized by small towns, several large industries and widely dispersed homes, driving up to an hour to reach the workplace is routine.

Statistics show that New River Valley residents live farther from work and log more commuting time than most Americans.

If on a workday morning you stood at a major intersection - Virginia 114 and U.S. 460, for example - counted the cars and surveyed commuters, you would discover:

Many more cars than only five years before

Lots of commuters who cross a county line to reach their workplace

Some commuters who've driven from Roanoke, but mostly commuters who circulate within the New River Valley

Only Montgomery County and Radford take in more daily commuters than they lose.

Driving relatively long distances to reach work, school, store or church is characteristic of rural areas, experts say. And the New River Valley is no\ different.

Since the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and the Celco - now Hoechst-Celanese - plant at Narrows opened more than 50 years ago, "magnet" industries that attract workers from a wide area have dominated the New River Valley's economy. Virginia Tech - now the valley's largest employer - is a more recent example.

Yet there are many weak links in such a system. It's demanding for workers and their automobiles. Bad weather can really complicate getting to work, as commuters repeatedly have discovered this winter. And we're an international oil embargo away from grinding to a halt.

If you drive to work, you've noticed how commuting patterns are having a\ daily impact - namely, there are a lot of New River Valley roads carrying too\ much traffic.

Consider the region's busiest primary highway, U.S. 460 between\ Christiansburg and Blacksburg. In 1987, the Virginia Transportation Department\ projected a 120 percent traffic increase on that road by the year 2015.

Seven years later, traffic on that stretch of U.S. 460 is already up 60\ percent, the agency says.

You might think all the additional U.S

already up 60 percent, the agency says.

You might think all the additional U.S. 460 traffic is caused by commercial development such as the New River Valley Mall and the Marketplace complex. But that's not the whole story, says Dan Brugh, highway resident engineer.

"It has a lot to do with where people are choosing to live," he said. "They're looking to the rural areas. They want a place that's out in the country, but not that far."

Traffic on U.S. 460 was already growing faster than the state average - even faster than some urban areas of Virginia - before the mall and Marketplace were built, Brugh said.

Individual houses and subdivisions are sprouting on land that used to be woodlots and farms. "We are scattering out," said Virginia Tech geographer Susan Brooker-Gross. And when that happens, "You have to go farther to get somewhere."

Secondary or feeder roads - the way people get to and from their country estates - are overcrowded all over the region, Brugh said. Prices Fork Road, South Franklin Street, Merrimac Road, Pilot Road and many others are far over capacity.

Of 115 miles of unpaved roads in Montgomery County, 90 miles carry more than 100 cars per day - a "very high traffic count," Brugh said.

With weak points throughout the transportation circulatory system, and limited funds to spend for improvements, Brugh said, it's increasingly difficult to know where the state should perform surgery.

"The complaints we get [about road conditions] are legitimate," he said. "But the question is how you prioritize what you do when you have so many needs."

The state has been trying to keep up by widening overcrowded roads and busy intersections. But traffic in the New River Valley has reached the point where brand new roads are needed, he said.

Brugh said it's "a necessity" to bypass the original U.S. 460 bypass by constructing Alternate 3A, the proposed connector road between Christiansburg and Blacksburg.

Should present growth trends continue, Alternate 3A will be overcrowded soon after it opens, he said.

Also, the demands of commuting within the valley are why Alternate 3A has priority over the proposed "smart road" link between Interstate 81 and Blacksburg.

Many commuters who travel between the New River and Roanoke valleys advocate building the "smart road" first. But Brugh calls 3A "the immediate need."