Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994 TAG: 9404130121
SECTION: NATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It has become more apparent over the past few days that the much-ballyhooed "Interstate 73," the proposed highway from Detroit to Charleston, S.C., may not be built as an interstate-quality highway but as a more modest four-lane road in the mold of the U.S. 460 bypass of Blacksburg or U.S. 220 around Martinsville.
Such a road could provide limited road-level access to intersecting roads rather than the cloverleaf and diamond intersections found on interstate highways. It could have sharper curves and require a lower speed than an interstate highway.
It also might use more of the existing right-of-way, require less land and be less costly to build.
Perhaps more significant, however, is that a lower-standard four-lane road might not provide the same economic promise that boosters of a new interstate had hoped.
"If they build a smaller road, it's going to have a smaller impact," said Jim Gillespie, a researcher with the Transportation Research Council in Charlottesville.
Gillespie conducted the economic impact study of proposed I-73 that helped convince the Commonwealth Transportation Board last month to pick a route for the road that would follow U.S. 460 from Bluefield to Roanoke and U.S. 220 from Roanoke through Martinsville to the North Carolina line, incorporating the high-tech Blacksburg to Interstate 81 "smart road" along the way. The study showed that the 460/220 route would provide the most economic benefit of seven possible corridors across Southwest Virginia.
A four-lane road of less than interstate standards would be slower and somewhat less attractive to freight shippers, Gillespie said. If a lower standard had been used in his study, it would have reduced the economic impact proportionately for all the routes studied, he said.
The 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act identified I-73 as a road that should be included in a National Highway System. The states will be able to contract with the federal Highway Trust Fund for 80 percent of the improvement cost of roads.
Congress has a deadline of Sept. 30, 1995, to establish the national system of high-priority roads. The act said U.S. 52 between Huntington and Bluefield was to be part of I-73, and about $120 million was included to improve U.S. 52.
Paul Wilkinson, director of planning for the West Virginia Department of Transportation, confirmed this week that West Virginia has no plans to improve U.S. 52 to interstate standards but intends to build a four-lane road to Appalachian Regional Commission highway standards. People involved in highway construction in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina have said it would be unlikely to have a road designated an interstate highway if it was not built entirely to interstate standards.
Virginians were not the only ones who were surprised by the news that I-73 was not going to be an interstate. "We're kind of disappointed, because we've been taking this thing very seriously," said David Robinson, director of policy and fund administration for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
"I would find it hard for a road like [West Virginia has] proposed to be labeled an interstate," Robinson said.
North Carolina plans to run I-73, for the most part, along existing roads that the state plans to upgrade regardless of whether the interstate is built. Some of those roads already are of interstate quality, and others will be rebuilt to "freeway" quality, which approximates an interstate with the exception of shoulder widths, Robinson said.
Virginia and North Carolina are at odds on where they want I-73 - or Route 73 - to meet at the state line. North Carolina was planning for the road to enter along I-77, but Virginia has chosen a U.S. 220 route. While North Carolina already has plans to make 220 a four-lane road from the state line to Greensboro, it does not plan to build a limited access freeway.
Improvement to interstate standards of 220 between Roanoke and the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina has been the goal of Job Link, an association of Virginia and North Carolina business people. Job Link supported the I-73 concept as a way to accomplish that goal.
Building the road to lower standards would not satisfy his group, said John Lambert of Roanoke, a Job Link spokesman. Having the road designated an interstate is important from the standpoint of perception and would give the area an advantage a four-lane would not, he said.
Bud Oakey, vice president of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the area would embrace the road even if it is not an interstate. "It's better than what we've got," he said.
"Of course, we'd prefer an interstate quality road," Oakey said, "but the roads we've got are in such bad need of repair and upgrading." And the state can't do that without federal help, he said.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, a supporter of the 460/220 route for I-73, said the solution could be for Virginia to build the road to interstate standards between Roanoke and North Carolina and build an improved primary four-lane on the 460 portion of the road north of Roanoke. But Goodlatte said the road should retain the interstate designation because it would provide more benefit.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, first raised the possibility that I-73 might not be an interstate in a press conference he held Friday in Christiansburg to announce his preferred route.
Boucher said he wanted a route built to less-than-interstate standards that would enter Virginia on I-77 and follow Virginia 100 from Hillsville to Pearisburg and U.S. 460 from there to Bluefield. He said his route would provide more economic benefit because it would pass through portions of Pulaski, Wythe and Carroll counties that do not have a four-lane road. He said he doubted the state's estimates of the economic benefit of the 460/220 route, because the area through which it will pass already has four-lane roads.
The Department of Transportation estimated that it would cost $1.25 billion to build an interstate highway along the 460/220 route. The department has estimated that four-laning the length of Virginia 100 would cost $438 million.
However, Goodlatte said Boucher's proposed route would cost more in the long run, because 460 and 220 still would have to be improved at taxpayer cost.
by CNB