Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505030068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON AND PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
North Carolina will get two more interstates and Roanoke one if Congress approves a plan devised by U.S. Sen. John Warner and his North Carolina colleague, Lauch Faircloth.
In a move that would end the battle between the two states over the route of the proposed Interstate 73, the two Republicans have achieved what Warner's office called "an understanding":
I-73 would be built from Roanoke to Greensboro, N.C., and in return, U.S. 52 from Mount Airy, N.C., to Winston-Salem, N.C., would be upgraded and renamed Interstate 74.
This would appear to satisfy competing interests in North Carolina, where one group was lobbying to bring the new highway through Winston-Salem while another was seeking to have it routed through Greensboro.
It's also a plan that apparently will carry weight in Congress: Warner heads the Senate subcommittee that will write the next highway bill, and Faircloth is a member. "The odds are 99 percent that this is going to go through," said a Faircloth aide, John Preyer.
A spokeswoman for Warner said Tuesday that he will submit the amended I-73 bill today.
Virginia's Transportation Board endorsed the Roanoke-Greensboro route for I-73 last year, but it's been opposed by North Carolina officials, who wanted the interstate to follow existing Interstate 77 through Virginia and then follow U.S. 52 into Winston-Salem.
Earlier this year, Virginia Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez hinted that the solution might be to build two roads in North Carolina.
At his subcommittee meeting today, Warner will propose the route Virginia's Transportation Board wanted - that I-73 turn east out of West Virginia and follow the U.S. 460 corridor to Blacksburg, picking up the proposed "smart" road to Interstate 81. I-73 would share I-81's route to Roanoke and I-581 through the city. It then would follow U.S. 220 south to Martinsville and into Rockingham County, N.C.
Under the compromise Warner and Faircloth reached, the road would loop past the Greensboro airport to I-40 and then head south to Asheboro, N.C.
Meanwhile, an upgraded U.S. 52/U.S. 311, which High Point and Winston-Salem have been counting on, would connect I-77 outside Mount Airy to I-73 near Asheboro.
Responding to the news Tuesday, a representative of the North Carolina Department of Transportation said two roads are definitely better than one.
"We've got a win-win situation," said Geoff Trego, the department's federal program coordinator in Washington, D.C. "With politics in Washington, anytime you can get 9/10ths of a loaf, you've got a good deal."
Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, whose congressional district includes Martinsville and Henry and Franklin counties, said he's pleased with the proposal and will work to ensure its approval in the House of Representatives.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, also is in favor of the Roanoke-Greensboro route.
Job Link, a group of business leaders from Franklin and Henry counties and Rockingham, N.C., has lobbied for the route as well.
But not everyone in Western Virginia approves of the proposal.
Blacksburg resident Shireen Parsons, an environmental activist and longtime opponent of the road, reacted to news of the deal with surprise.
"I didn't expect it," she said. "I thought North Carolina was going to hold out."
Parsons, who protested with a group of I-73 opponents and spoke with Warner two weeks ago when the senator spoke at a Christiansburg banquet, decried what she termed another example of deals done behind closed doors.
"It's just one more example of our public officials serving special interests," she said. "The process is taken out of the hands of the public."
She vowed, though, that the fight against the road won't end. "It's not over until they bring the bulldozers in."
In the New River Valley, Blacksburg and Giles County are on record as opposing a route through their communities. But the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors last year favored a corridor through the county, as long as it didn't head up the Catawba Valley.
Larry Linkous, chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, said some board members may have changed their minds since that vote. The issue drew hundreds of people to a series of supervisors' meetings in early 1994.
Linkous said he views the New River Valley-Roanoke route as the best in terms of economic development. Yet, from the point of view of the will of the citizens in Montgomery, "I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly" endorse that path.
In Wytheville and Wythe County, which had wanted Interstate 73 to be routed over existing Interstate 77, local leaders said motorists going from West Virginia to North Carolina would use the shorter I-77 anyway, and I-73 routing would only take away money which would have improved I-77.
"If the politicians choose the route, there's no telling where it'll go; and, if the engineers choose the route, it'll go by the quickest, cheapest, most economical route possible," said Wytheville Mayor Trent Crewe. "Obviously the senator [John Warner] is a politician."
"You can't beat politics," said Carl Stark of Wytheville, chairman of the Great Lakes to Florida Highway Association, which also has pushed to route I-73 over existing I-77.
"If they want to spend the money, fine," Stark said, "The more roads they've got, the better off they are. But there will be no funds for upgrading 77 under the program, and that's the way the people are going to go."
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said the Warner-Faircloth proposal does not change the recommendation he has pushed.
He supports bringing I-73 into Virginia from North Carolina on Interstate 77, where it would pick up Virginia 100 at Hillsville and follow that road through Carroll, Pulaski and Giles counties to Pearisburg. The road then would turn onto U.S. 460 and into West Virginia.
by CNB