Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 27, 1994 TAG: 9410270083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Because of increasing crowding on the interstate, the Commonwealth Transportation Board in 1992 authorized planning to begin on widening a 44.5-mile segment of interstate between Buchanan in Botetourt County and Christiansburg in Montgomery County.
When proposed by a regional committee in May 1992, the idea was to add one lane in each direction in the median to bring the highway to six lanes.
However, current traffic projections for the stretch of interstate between U.S. 460 at Christiansburg and U.S. 220 near Daleville justify adding two more lanes in each direction for that portion, bringing it to eight lanes.
VDOT projects that by the year 2015, traffic on I-81 near Roanoke will total as much as 83,000 vehicles per day compared with the current daily average of 50,000 vehicles.
Not enough room exists in the median to add more than one additional lane in each direction; if a decision is made to eight-lane the road, two lanes will have to be added at the shoulders of the present highway. That would require widening bridges, altering overpasses and possibly purchasing additional land, Salem District Engineer Fred Altizer said.
Any final decisions on the road's design and number of lanes will have to be approved by the Transportation Board before construction can begin. The design work is scheduled to continue through 1996.
The preliminary engineering work has to be completed and approved before the state can begin buying land to widen the road, said Laura Bullock, a VDOT, spokeswoman. However, the state is already starting to set aside money for the construction portion of the widening project, she said.
The widening of bridges between exits 140 and 141 in the Salem area has been planned separate from the overall widening project and will begin next year, Bullock said.
The order in which the Christiansburg-to-Buchanan widening project will be built has not been decided, Bullock said. The most-heavily traveled sections, such as those near Roanoke, might be widened first, she said.
The planning also will need to take into account other road projects that could affect it, such as the "smart highway" from Blacksburg to I-81 and the Virginia section of proposed Interstate 73, which may share the roadbed with I-81 if it passes through the Roanoke Valley.
VDOT projects that 22 percent of the traffic using I-81 through the Roanoke Valley in 2015 will be heavy trucks. That percentage is similar to the current ratio of heavy trucks to smaller vehicles. It's also the largest of any interstate in Virginia.
Heavy trucks passing through the Roanoke Valley on Interstate 81 have filled up all the maneuvering space in the right-hand lanes on each side of the four-lane road, according to the VDOT study.
In 1972, the first full year the interstate was complete in Virginia, traffic through the Roanoke Valley averaged 20,175 vehicles a day; 2,300 were big trucks.
Figures provided by Billy Pierce, who manages the state scales on I-81 near Daleville, show that for the first eight months of 1994, an average of 6,916 trucks per day passed through the scales. In August, 8,450 trucks a day passed through the scales.
by CNB