Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994 TAG: 9405250141
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Dull told a group of environmentally minded opponents Monday night that the state is stupid to think the federal government will ever appropriate a huge chunk of money to build an interstate whose route caters to old-fashioned, wasteful spending motives.
Furthermore, she told the New River Valley Environmental Coalition, Virginia needs to use the National Highway System funds it already receives to upgrade roads like U.S. 220 through Franklin County and U.S. 460 and quit hoping that federal interstate funds will pay for those projects.
"The state is just being unrealistic to think that there's some pot of federal money that is going to save them," said Dull, who worked for the federal agency from 1990-1992.
Congress' passage of the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, with its supposed aim of eliminating pork-barrel projects, means it won't pay for an interstate that doglegs off to the left - to Roanoke - when it could just as easily head down Interstate 77 at a cost savings of $500 million on its way from Detroit to Charleston, S.C., she said.
After working with legislators who drafted the act, she claimed, it was supposed to be the end of the interstate era.
Dull, who now lives in Eggleston, said the state isn't shooting straight when it tells Southwest Virginia businesses that it needs money tagged for an interstate to help it pay for U.S. 220 and 460 upgrades. Virginia received $73 million each of the past two years from the federal government in National Highway System funds, monies which it divvies up for use in myriad road projects.
"If they're not using any of it to upgrade U.S. 220 then they're just jerking around the business community in Roanoke," she said.
The state Department of Transportation has estimated it would cost $1.26 billion to build I-73 through the Roanoke Valley. If Congress was to designate such a road as part of its national highway system, the federal government would pay 80 percent of construction costs, with the state picking up the remaining 20 percent.
If Congress won't pay for a new interstate, as one man at the meeting asked Dull, "Why should we worry?"
Because, "the fiscal realism is something they haven't had to grapple with," Dull answered. Plus, the uncertainty the debate is causing for property owners is unfair, she said. And you just can't be sure what politicians will come up with.
The good news is Congress is in a holding pattern and seems more than a year away from considering an appropriation for I-73. A House of Representatives committee approved a bill last week that included $5 million for planning of Interstate 83, which would improve U.S. 220. State officials have viewed that as preliminary support of the entire I-73 project, although I-73 was never mentioned.
Fred Altizer, administrator of the Salem district of the Virginia Department of Transportation, gave an even simpler answer regarding what Congress will decide: "We don't know," he said.
by CNB