Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 28, 1994 TAG: 9403010001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KERMIT W. SALYER JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Close on their heels was the federal government, subsidizing their flight by building freeways to enable them to enter and leave the cities quickly and easily, for the jobs remained, in the beginning at least, in the cities. Hand in hand with the highways' expansion was the explosion of private-car ownership which was, then as now, unequaled in the world.
Thus began the inexorable spiral we see continuing today: more roads, more cars; more cars, more roads. It is axiomatic among highway planners and engineers that vehicular traffic expands to fill available space. If you build it, they will drive.
Until nature plays her hand.
In mid-January, across the nation, we were shown once again just how utterly dependent we are on the automobile, to the point where paralysis sets in if we cannot use our cars.
In Los Angeles, basically one continuous low-density suburb, the earthquake caused highways to crumble and cliffs to collapse, disrupting traffic for what may be, in many cases, more than a year. True, the Angelenos adapted quickly to the problem by finding different routes to work, starting their commutes earlier in the morning or resorting to mass transit systems. But for some months to come, life will not be business as usual.
In the Eastern United States, the recent ice storms had the same, if less lasting, effect, with businesses and even governments shutting down for a stretch of days. While not as dramatic as events on the West Coast, the disruption stemmed also mainly from the inability to use our cars under inclement conditions.
But the sun returns, the ice melts, the earth stops moving and, hey, road-building season is just around the corner.
No.1 on the list of things to do is spending $137 million in taxpayers' money (or $67 million or $160 million, depending on what day it is) to finance the 10-laning of Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia for the benefit of Disney's America. One might say it would also be for the benefit of all Virginians, but Disney has been so abstruse with its facts and figures that it has become impossible to take them at face value.
No doubt Disney is dangling the magic tax-revenue bone in front of overeager politicians and zoning officials (notoriously spineless, as witness our own local travesty, the Parkway Bowl and Knoll Affair) who want to believe, a la Peter Pan, that this thing will fly. What is really needed is a reality check, with plenty of independent study to confirm or refute Disney's claims. At a minimum, the proposal should be subject to a referendum.
As noted in the Roanoke Times & World-News on Jan. 21 ("Allen wants Disney to get $137-million bond break"), the other major theme parks in Virginia, King's Dominion and Busch Gardens, got no such help from the state and, in fact, paid for highway and other improvements themselves.
This "proffer" system allows counties to negotiate with businesses that want to locate in a particular district, a development method first used in the state in Northern Virginia. If a company wants to elbow into an already overcrowded area, a county can say, in effect, fine - but build your own roads.
If Disney's venture into Virginia is going to be such a moneymaker, they should be willing to spend the necessary funds to make it happen. Why should they expect preferential treatment at taxpayer expense?
In stark contrast, why is our own living-history park, the Explore Project (real, not imaginary, history), so studiously ignored in the halls of state government?
Farther in the future, and closer to home, three major highway projects are contending for the attention of lawmakers: Interstate 73; the smart highway (as one link of I-73); and the TransAmerica Highway proposal.
Of the three projects, the TransAmerica Highway is the most nebulous. By the middle of the next century there would be a highway from Norfolk to Los Angeles, capable of handling traffic at speeds up to 150 miles per hour. While this is only in the think-tank stage, it poses some interesting questions.
Exactly who will use it? Many cities will be vying for a connection to this road; will commuters clog it up by using it for a crosstown expressway in their respective localities, or will their "smart cars" somehow prohibit its use for this purpose?
And if a "smart truck" is using the same road and its fail-safe brain fails, 100,000 pounds at 150 mph packs one hell of a wallop, enough energy to have the effect of a bomb, which could cripple the system if failure occurred in just the wrong place. Should there be more than one highway in each direction along the right of way to keep these behemoths segregated from passenger vehicles?
By the time this road is built, most people alive today will be members of the blue-hair generation, or worse, but it still gives one pause.
I am reminded here of the term "sub-optimization," defined as doing something as best as can be done, which should never have been done in the first place. The only proposal that makes any sense is I-73, along with its "smart" link, from Detroit to Charleston, S.C. A north-south highway is necessary; most major roads here trend east-west, or along the axis of the Blue Ridge. Securing the corridor is an important priority, but even this should not be undertaken without due consideration of alternatives. Alternatives abound with the smart road. There is no reason this right of way needs to be developed for the exclusive use of automobiles, smart or otherwise.
The entry of General Motors into the equation gives this project a world-class twist. But why not add Norfolk Southern, as well? With the revamping of Hotel Roanoke and the planned adjacent conference center, and the hotel's Virginia Tech connection, is a regional light-rail or mag-lev system out of the question?
Connecting the Tech campus with the conference center, and possibly the Valley View and Tanglewood shopping complexes, light rail could be a showpiece for out-of-town visitors and conferees, allowing them access to the places they would most likely wish to go, without their worrying about getting lost or clogging up the local highways. Imagine: hotel guests parking in Roanoke, shopping the City Market and the malls, attending meetings at Tech and visiting Explore, and never having to use their cars.
No viable alternative to the automobile exists. America has gone, if you will, too far down that road. But with a change of attitude - with a new vision - there is no reason Roanoke and its surrounding communities could not become the center of the next great revolution in transportation. Isn't that what Roanoke has been looking for?
\ Kermit W. Salyer Jr. is on the library staff of Virginia Western Community College.
by CNB