Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412200005
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The one-liner wasn't from a stand-up comic; it was from Dr. Ronald Carrier, president of James Madison University in Harrisonburg and an economist himself, as he spoke at a recent Interstate 81 corridor transportation planning meeting at Virginia Tech.
Carrier, who is known for his self-deprecating, homespun humor, was estimating the value of I-81 to the people of Southwest Virginia. The highway, he said, "is probably the most powerful economic condition we have in the western part of the state."
Most people think of I-81 as just a street or a road. "We have to think of it as a powerful economic binding force," Carrier cautioned the local leaders at the meeting.
Using a map taped to a chalkboard to illustrate his point, Carrier recalled that, for most of human history, cities have grown and economies have developed because natural geographic features have given some places advantages over others. Norfolk, he noted, would not be the great port it is without the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay.
More recently, Carrier observed, people have acted to provide themselves advantages that Mother Nature failed to bestow. One example of this kind of man-made effort is Interstate 81. "This highway to us in the western part of Virginia is the Atlantic Ocean," he said.
"We've got to get communities mobilized to realize they've got an economic stake in this road. Major decisions have to be made about this road in the next few years or we're going to shortchange future generations."
Making good decisions and protecting the health of I-81 and the local economies that depend upon it is the goal of the Interstate 81 Corridor Council. The group was formed in the late 1980s and has members from all seven planning districts along the highway. Its goals are to increase the number of jobs in the region, raise the income level of the region's residents and improve the quality of community life.
Among the corridor council's accomplishments to date are a manual for localities to use in planning development around interstate interchanges; a survey of leaders along I-81, and a study of the scenery along the interstate. That's according to Wayne Strickland, executive director of the Fifth District Planning Commission in Roanoke and chairman of the corridor council.
I-81 extends 328 miles within Virginia, with 90 interchanges. On the north, it enters Virginia from West Virginia near Winchester and on the south from Tennessee near Bristol. Twenty-one Virginia cities and towns lie along its path. The corridor as a whole is home to 800,000 people.
For most of its length, traffic on I-81 includes one truck for every two cars. Each week, 49,000 trucks pass through the automated scales on I-81 near Daleville. The ratio of trucks to cars on I-81 is two to three times greater than on I-95 near Richmond.
I-95 has more trucks overall than I-81 because it carries about twice as much traffice overall. However, trucks passing through the rolling terrain of I-81 require 1.7 times more road space than those cruising along flat I-95.
Although the number of truck trailers moving off the highways onto rail cars for the longer hauls will continue to grow in the years ahead, that growth will not prevent a substantial increase in the number of truck-miles on the highways, said Dale Bennett of the Virginia Trucking Association. There will continue to be a need for highway construction, he said.
Additional lanes are needed on I-81 along its entire length, said Larry Caldwell, a VDOT official. Expanding the interstate to eight lanes is recommended in the Wytheville and Roanoke areas and to six lanes everywhere else, he said. The cost of that work has been estimated at up to $1.75 billion.
"We know that it will have to be widened," said David Gehr, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Transportation. Preliminary engineering studies on four major sections of the highway will be underway soon at a cost of $22 million, he said. The studies will look not just at traffic on the interstate but, in line with federal directives, also will examine how interstate traffic can work with air and rail transportation.
Roughly 30 years old, I-81 was rated by the American Automobile Association as one of the 10 most scenic interstates in the United States. With the prospect looking good that additional lanes will wipe out I-81's landscaped median strip, the challenge facing local and state leaders is to maintain the beauty of the drive while coping with its ever-growing mass of north-south traffic.
by CNB