Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510160054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It's in the bank," Warner said of I-73, an interstate highway that would link the center of Michigan with Charleston, S.C. The road would enter Virginia at Bluefield, pass through Roanoke and by Martinsville, then enter North Carolina near Greensboro. Regional business groups say the road is needed for economic growth.
Warner, who sits on a conference committee that has been working out the differences between versions of the National Highway System legislation passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, said a final version of the bill should pass Congress within a week. Warner said the legislative football had reached the two-yard line.
The legislation, Warner said, would create a system of 160,000 miles of high-priority primary, interstate and other roads - some existing, some proposed - that would carry 40 percent of the nation's traffic. The system would be especially important to truckers, he said, because its roads would carry 70 percent of commercial truck traffic. The bill will provide $6.5 billion annually for construction and maintenance of the system, including $150 million for Virginia roads.
Although the House and Senate have agreed to portions of the bill regarding I-73, conferees have other major issues to resolve, Warner told the trucking group.
For instance, Warner said, the Senate version of the bill would designate part of the money in the federal Highway Trust Fund, which comes from gasoline and diesel fuel taxes, to Amtrak and mass transit. But Warner said he agreed with the position of state and national trucking associations that the trust fund money should go only toward roads and bridges.
Warner addressed another issue of interest to truckers: the need to repair or replace Northern Virginia's Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which Warner said is in far worse shape than thought. A report to be released soon on the status of the four-lane bridge, which carries traffic on Interstate 95 over the Potomac River, is "not good news," Warner said.
Warner called the need to fix the bridge, which is owned by the federal government, a safety issue but said the $2 billion repair price tag is holding up congressional action.
Dale Bennett, executive director of the trucking association, said the bridge is crucial to truckers because I-95 is a major north-south route.
One trucking official asked Warner if anything was being done to restore the tax deduction for meals eaten by truckers and others involved in transportation while they're traveling. Congress previously dropped the business-meal deduction from 80 percent to 50 percent in an effort to curb abuse, but caught truck drivers and other transportation workers in the same net.
Bennett said his association would like to see the deduction restored to its previous level for transportation workers who are required by law to stop and rest at regular intervals.
by CNB