Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505190084
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER AND ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
The Commonwealth Transportation Board gave tentative approval Thursday for allocating federal funds to the Pulaski project. But the money fell short of what the town had hoped to get for the project.
Pulaski Town Council had sought $950,000 in grant funds. The town would have provided its required $190,000 match with money from the $95.4 million state bond issue for parks and recreation approved by Virginia voters in 1992.
The bond issue included $500,000 to extend the linear state park by about 1.2 miles into Pulaski. It now rolls through the counties of Grayson, Wythe, Carroll and Pulaski and the city of Galax on what used to be a Norfolk Southern Corp. railway path.
The money will pay for right-of-way acquisition adjacent to the NS rail bed and Peak Creek. The grant funds were seen mainly as a way to enhance the new length of trail with signs and amenities for its users.
The extension will take it into downtown Pulaski right up to the town's refurbished Train Station, a former depot building donated to the town by NS as the rail bed had been donated to the state for the trail.
The town spent several years fixing up the depot, which houses the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce offices as well as the Raymond Ratcliffe Museum.
Pulaski officials see the extension of the trail into their downtown as a funnel to get travelers to visit the many new shops that have helped revive the business section in recent years. The chamber would also be able to provide information to trail users and others about other area attractions and increase Pulaski's tourism potential.
The trail now ends just outside Pulaski near the Xaloy Inc. site off Virginia 99 near the southeastern town limits.
Final approval is expected at the Transportation Board's next meeting June 2 in Richmond. Before that, a public hearing will be held at 9 a.m. June 12 at the Salem Department of Transportation office on this project and others included in the state's six-year transportation plan.
The grant funds come from the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. The board also approved a supplement of $235,585 for the six-mile Huckleberry Trail bike way and footpath between Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
by CNB