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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 13, 1995                   TAG: 9506130048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STATES, UNIVERSITIES UNITE ON I-81 STUDY

Ray Pethtel, a transportation fellow at Virginia Tech and interim director of Tech's Center for Transportation Research, described the project to members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board on Monday in Salem, where the board was holding a hearing on its six-year spending plan.

The first meeting of transportation officials and university researchers from Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia will be June 21 at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, Pethtel said. Another meeting of the research group will be held in Roanoke next spring, he said.

Researchers will look for ways to improve traffic management technology - especially in regard to trucks - and at advanced traveler and tourist information systems, Pethtel said. The research will focus on transportation, economic development and educational issues involving I-81, he said.

Pethtel encouraged the board to consider installing communication capabilities such as fiber optics along I-81 as the road is being rebuilt. The technology could be used for traffic management and to provide information to travelers, he said.

The purpose of Monday's hearing was to let Virginians in the Bristol, Salem, Lynchburg and Staunton transportation districts comment on the board's final spending proposals in its six-year, $10.4 billion statewide transportation improvement program.

Steve Chapin, chairman of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce's transportation committee, told the board that the most important project in the Roanoke area was the proposed widening of I-81 from Buchanan to Christiansburg. The project will encourage economic development, he said.

The state already has allocated more than $10 million to conduct preliminary engineering studies for the widening. Plans are to widen I-81 from four to six lanes from Buchanan to Daleville and from four to eight lanes from Daleville to roughly a half-mile south of a proposed U.S. 460 bypass interchange in Christiansburg. The estimated construction cost of the 44-mile project is $300 million, not including the preliminary engineering costs and possible increases caused by inflation.

Among other requests, people at the hearing asked the board for improvements to U.S. 501 and Virginia 24 in Bedford County.

For the state as a whole, the six-year program, which runs through the 2000-2001 budget year, includes planned spending of $4.9 billion for maintenance; $506 million on public transit projects; and $4.6 billion on new road construction and related projects. Spending will include safety projects and other projects that add to a region's quality of life, including hiking and biking trails, historic preservation, and acquisition of scenic easements.

The board will take its final vote June 22 in Richmond.

Written comments on the plan will be accepted through June 22. They should be mailed to Robert O. Cassada, Virginia Department of Transportation, 1401 E. Broad St., Richmond 23219. The board's e-mail address is vadotinfoaol.com.