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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 21, 1995                   TAG: 9510230020
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

'SMART' ROAD OPINIONS STILL SPLIT

More than 100 comments recorded Wednesday at the final design public hearing for the "smart" highway and gathered during the weeks before it show a divided opinion on the project, even after years of debate that began during the late 1980s.

Of the estimated 105 comments tallied by the Virginia Department of Transportation, 65 people favored the project while 40 opposed the road, said Dan Brugh, VDOT's resident engineer in Christiansburg. The department is still waiting for 15 statements recorded at the Wednesday meeting by the court reporter.

Comments can be forwarded to the department until Oct. 28.

So far, Brugh said, there have been no surprises.

"It was nothing different on either side," he said.

The hearing Wednesday night was the last before design plans for the smart highway, a more direct link between Blacksburg and Interstate 81, are given to the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

If the board approves the design plans, detailed blueprints will be drawn up, land needed for the project will be purchased and construction bids will go out by the end of next year for the first 1.7 miles of the road. State and federal funds have not been secured for the rest of the link.

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors still must approve allowing 140 to 142 acres of an agricultural and forestal district to be used for the smart road. The board is expected to vote on the request at its Nov. 20 meeting.

Brugh said the Transportation Department is especially interested in comments from property owners affected by the project. Dianne Rencsok, who owns 80 acres of land in Montgomery County, is one of those land owners.

After Rencsok discovered an interchange near Virginia 641 would engulf more than half of her land, she changed her opinion of the road dramatically from ambiguous to furious. She talked to the Transportation Department about an access road "but that still doesn't bring the land back.

"I do think they need something to fix the traffic but I would rather they didn't take more than half my property," she said.

Others who recorded comments with the Transportation Department were more skeptical of the road. Lisa Hammett, who is in the process of moving from Georgia into a house in the Ellett Valley, told the Transportation Department she does not think the road is necessary.

"The smart road part of it I really don't think is a basis for a real road," said Hammett, whose 3-year-old daughter, Wilson, was writing on her own comment card at the meeting. Wilson was too shy to rattle off her opinions to strangers, but her card revealed carefully drawn lines and circles.

The Transportation Department is preparing a report that will include the public's comments for the Commonwealth Transportation Board. The board is expected to address the smart road in December or January.

For more information on the public comments, call the Virginia Department of Transportation's Christiansburg office at 381-7200.

by CNB