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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995                   TAG: 9509060074
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ALT. U.S. 58 BYPASSES ALMOST DONE

The completion of two new thoroughfares in Southwest Virginia will significantly shorten travel time and defuse frustration for motorists in the coalfields.

Anyone who routinely drives Alternate U.S. 58, the main east-west route between Abingdon and Big Stone Gap, knows traffic backs up at Norton and Coeburn. In those towns, the four lanes narrow to two, creating bumper-to-bumper lines of cars and coal trucks that slowly snake through busy downtowns.

Coeburn also has a busy railroad crossing that can leave motorists at a standstill while hundreds of coal cars rumble by.

But the Virginia Department of Transportation is scheduled to open a $30 million, 1.8-mile bypass of downtown Norton on Friday. The road will save travelers an estimated five to 25 minutes.

And on Sept. 12, the department plans to open the first phase of its Coeburn bypass, a 4.2-mile, $35 million parallel route for Alternate U.S. 58. It will save 10 minutes or more, depending on traffic and trains that can be avoided.

``We've been waiting 20 years to get this bypass,'' said Norton Mayor B. Robert Raines. ``It's going to make a whole lot of happy people, I can tell you that, especially those who travel it both ways each day.''

The Norton bypass was designed in the 1970s, but money to build it dried up. The road was revived during the Bush administration with Appalachian Regional Commission funding, Raines said.

The opening is several months late and $4 million more expensive than projected, because of landslides caused by a week of heavy rains, said Leland Branham, the department's resident engineer.

``Everything got saturated, and it gave way. The whole mountain slipped,'' he said.

Norton, the state's smallest city with 4,300 residents, has been preparing downtown businesses for the change, now that the usual 20,000 to 30,000 cars are not coming through.

The city plans to modify traffic patterns to ensure that downtown businesses have customers after the traffic disappears, he said.

by CNB