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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995                   TAG: 9503080118
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

X MARKS SPOT FOR ADDING LANES TO INTERSTATE 81

From the air, Interstate 81 should look something like a treasure map: giant white X's marking a thin vein of golden opportunities for highway construction crews.

More than a dozen 10-foot X's are scattered along the median strip of I-81 between Botetourt County and exit 118 in Christiansburg.

The X's, placed by the Virginia Department of Transportation on Tuesday, will help aerial photographers document the 44.5-mile stretch of road scheduled to be widened by VDOT, spokeswoman Laura Bullock said.

Bullock said the Blacksburg consulting company Anderson and Associates will use the pictures to plan the widening of I-81 to six, or possibly eight, lanes.

The project, first proposed by the Commonwealth Transportation Board in 1992, called for using the median to add a lane in each direction.

But a 1994 VDOT draft report estimated that by 2015, traffic could increase by 30,000 vehicles to more than 80,000 per day, which could require a total of eight lanes, Bullock said.

by CNB