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

DATE: TUESDAY, October 18, 1994                   TAG: 9410180110
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I-73 NOT LIKELY TO CROSS OVER BENT MOUNTAIN

"Engineering over Bent Mountain would be very difficult," Virginia Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez said Monday. Avoiding Bent Mountain would "be reasonable from an engineering standpoint," he said.

Preliminary planning maps unveiled by the Virginia Department of Transportation earlier this year showed I-73 - a proposed Detroit-to-Charleston, S.C., highway - crossing Bent Mountain in Roanoke and Montgomery counties.

However, the state has not made a decision on the exact route of the road, and residents' opposition to bringing the road across Bent Mountain has been vigorous.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board decided in March that I-73 generally should follow the path of U.S. 460 from Bluefield to Roanoke, incorporating the proposed "smart road" from Blacksburg to I-81 and then roughly following the path of U.S. 220 south to North Carolina.

The route over Bent Mountain was one possible way to link the U.S. 460 and U.S. 220 sections.

Martinez said several routes for I-73 have been discussed, including the possibility of bringing it down I-581 through Roanoke.

The road's future depends, in part, on Virginia and North Carolina agreeing on a border crossing, Martinez said. North Carolina originally had settled on a crossing along existing I-77 in Carroll County. Virginia, on the other hand, wants the road to cross the border somewhere south of Martinsville.

Richard Lockwood, the Department of Transportation's chief planning engineer, said Monday that if I-73 were built across Bent Mountain, and built to interstate standards, it might end up being more intrusive than planners at first had thought.

If it were built to less than interstate standards, the impact on Bent Mountain would be minimal, he said. The state, however, has been discussing an interstate-quality road.

Once Virginia and North Carolina can agree on a border crossing, Virginia can begin more detailed location studies for the road. Money for those studies is in the state's six-year road plan, and the work could begin after the first of the year, Lockwood said.

At the request of Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, the U.S. House of Representatives included $5 million in its version of a National Highway System Bill for planning of a proposed new interstate between Roanoke and Greensboro, tentatively called I-83. That road was expected to become part of I-73.

National Highway System legislation died, however, after House and Senate conferees, involved in a funding dispute, could not compromise on their differing versions of the bill before Congress adjourned this month. The bill will have to pass through the legislative process again when a new Congress convenes in January.

Goodlatte said he always has thought I-581 is one of the routes that should be considered for bringing I-73 through the Roanoke Valley. Bent Mountain residents' concern that the road was coming their way is premature, he said.

His first concern, Goodlatte said, is to get Congress to agree the road should go through the Roanoke Valley. The U.S. 220 route would help the Virginia economy and that of North Carolina's Piedmont Triad of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, Goodlatte said.

In building I-73, the U.S. 220 section should be the highest priority, followed by the "smart road" link, and then the U.S. 460 section from Blacksburg to Bluefield, Goodlatte said. The 460 section could follow the existing roadbed, he suggested.