Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 13, 1995 TAG: 9504130081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
Warner, a Republican who's the new chairman of a subcommittee that will write the Senate's version of a National Highway System bill, said he will include language requiring that I-73 be built the way Virginia transportation officials want it, specifying that the road pass through Roanoke. The Senate's work on the bill begins in two weeks.
Virginia and North Carolina officials also confirmed Wednesday that a dispute between the two states over where I-73 should cross their common border likely will be settled by having two new interstate routes designated, a possibility first raised publicly by Virginia Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez in March.
Warner compared his announcement to the D-Day invasion of France. "We're launching a big drive," he said. "We're launching it because it's the right thing for Virginia."
Virginia's chosen route for the proposed Detroit-to-Charleston, S.C., interstate generally follows the route of U.S. 460 from Bluefield to Blacksburg, picks up the proposed "smart" road and I-81 into Roanoke, and then generally follows I-581 and U.S. 220 to the North Carolina line.
Warner said he realized that in supporting that route he was going to make unhappy "a good deal of Southwest Virginia," where people have supported other paths for the road through or near their communities.
Some, including the Bluefield businessmen who conceived of I-73, have argued the Virginia route should follow existing I-77 through Wytheville. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, has argued the road would provide the most economic benefit by tracing Virginia 100 through the New River Valley.
But Warner; Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke; and a representative of Rep. L.F. Payne Jr., D-Nelson County, said the Roanoke-to-Martinsville I-73 route is important to the economic future of the region encompassing those two cities. U.S. 220, built in the 1940s, does not provide an adequate outlet for manufactured goods and is a safety hazard, they said.
The Roanoke-Martinsville route puts the tax dollars where they will do the most good, Goodlatte said.
Representatives of Job Link, a group of business people from Franklin and Henry counties and Rockingham County, N.C., who have promoted an upgrading of U.S. 220 to interstate standards, were on hand to applaud Warner's announcement.
Goodlatte argued that a route through Roanoke also would provide the greatest economic benefit to the Winston-Salem, N.C., area because it would provide a more direct link to the Northeast for Winston-Salem's goods. Earlier federal law says the road must pass through Winston-Salem.
North Carolina has supported an I-77 border crossing in Carroll County for I-73 but has been talking with Virginia officials about alternatives. However, a story in Tuesday's Charlotte (N.C.) Observer said North Carolina, which has differences with both Virginia and South Carolina over I-73 border crossings, has decided to go ahead and build the road where it wants. Garland Garrett Jr., North Carolina's deputy transportation secretary for highways, confirmed Wednesday that the Observer story was accurate.
Garrett said it was his understanding that Warner and Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., who sits on the Senate Transportation Committee with Warner, have agreed there should be two new interstate designations, one along the Virginia route and another along the North Carolina route. Goodlatte also mentioned that possibility in Martinsville on Wednesday, and Martinez told a reporter it was a possibility when he attended a road hearing in Salem on March 22.
"If we get the two interstates, it will make everybody happy," Garrett said.
North Carolina soon will have an interstate-quality connector from I-77 to Winston-Salem, he said. In fact, North Carolina, which has a fat road budget, already has plans to spend $550 million through 2003 to build bypasses and upgrade existing roads for its 260-mile section of I-73.
North Carolina also is upgrading U.S. 220 from Greensboro to the Virginia line, which would fit with Virginia's route for the interstate.
Warner said his bill also would add U.S. 58 to the Federal Highway Admininstration's map of the National Highway System. The legislation establishes a system of high-priority, heavily traveled roads that are eligible for 80 percent federal funding when they are improved. Virginia will get $150 million in federal highway money for roads in the system next year.
Both the House and Senate passed a National Highway System bill late last year but couldn't resolve their differences before Congress adjourned. The 1991 ISTEA law requires the system be designated in law before Oct. 1 this year.
Warner's support for the Roanoke I-73 route is important because Warner will sit on the conference committee when the House and Senate versions of National Highway System legislation are blended together, said Bud Oakey, a lobbyist for the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce.
"When [Warner] says what he wants, he's going to get what he wants," Oakey said.
Warner's remarks Wednesday were punctuated by the background roar of NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip's Chevrolet, which was running practice laps on the half-mile race track nearby.
The racing noise was a reminder that the senator is in a race of his own as he faces a possible nomination fight for re-election next year. It was a fact that Warner himself alluded to more than once.
Warner mentioned he had served in the Senate many years to rise to a point where, as chairman of a subcommittee, he could make decisions that will benefit Virginia.
He said supporters of I-73 will have to fight to keep the road in federal law and said not to expect to see its construction completed for eight years. That would coincide with the end of his next term, should he be re-elected.
by CNB