Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
In 10 days, the board will face an unprecedented land-use decision that could slow or even stop the progress of the controversial "smart" road project.
Smart road opponents say a Virginia Department of Transportation official threatened board members with the withholding of funds for the much-needed U.S. 460 bypass connector, known as Alternative 3A, if they don't rule in the smart road's favor. The connector is a board priority to relieve congestion at Peppers Ferry Road and to provide a link to Interstate 81 for the Falling Branch industrial park.
The Board of Supervisors, after a public hearing, must decide Nov. 20 if the state's proposed condemnation of 140 acres in the Ellett Valley for the high-tech highway conflicts with a county policy designed to preserve rural land.
In past votes, the board has never opposed the smart road. The last time, in February 1992, the board backed the project by a 5-2 vote. The board's membership has not changed since that time.
The calls compelled state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, to write state Transportation Secretary Robert Martinez a week ago and ask if the allegation were true.
Martinez faxed a response within hours. "The allegation you've heard is utter and complete hogwash," he wrote. "That's language a down-home fellow like yourself should appreciate."
Marye, a smart road skeptic, sent a second letter Monday asking specifically if a threat had been made regarding the U.S. 460 bypass connector.
"You bet there was no statement made," Martinez said Thursday. "They're not going around blackmailing anybody; that's ridiculous."
Supervisors' Chairman Larry Linkous said no one has threatened him. "I don't know where the rumor got started," Linkous said. "I would think ... that as chairman, I would have been talked to." Five other supervisors also said this week that no one had threatened them. One supervisor, Joe Gorman, wouldn't comment.
Shireen Parsons, chairwoman of the New River Valley chapter of the Sierra Club, has been one of the people pushing the story. "Three members of the Board of Supervisors have told me that that is so," she said of the blackmail threat. "I don't understand why they're so unwilling to have this made public." She would not identify the members because she said they had told her only on the condition their names not be made public.
The two most visible VDOT officials who deal with the Board of Supervisors are Dan Brugh, resident engineer in Christiansburg, and Fred Altizer, district administrator in Salem.
Brugh said the allegation baffled him. He said the only link between the smart road and Alternative 3A is one that's been on the public record for a year or more: If the smart road isn't built, the I-81 interchange with Alternative 3A needs to be redesigned to handled the 25,000 cars a day the smart highway otherwise would carry eventually.
"We're going to proceed with 3A regardless of the smart road," Brugh said. "We're going to proceed with 3A whatever the board does. The only question is the interchange at 81."
Altizer, who is Brugh's boss, said Wednesday that redesigning the bypass connector to handle more traffic would postpone and increase the cost of the project. Current plans call for construction of the 5.5-mile bypass connector between I-81 and Blacksburg to begin in 1999 and cost an estimated $135.3 million.
In contrast, the six-mile smart road between southern Blacksburg and I-81 near Shawsville has an estimated price tag of $103 million. The state is to begin acquiring the right of way for an initial two-mile "test bed" by early next year. The highway - initially trumpeted as a time saver for motorists driving between Roanoke and Virginia Tech - is to be a proving ground for new transportation systems under development to improve highway safety. Its critics call it nothing more than an environmental boondoggle designed to attract research dollars to Tech; its boosters say it will bring new, high-tech businesses and jobs to the New River Valley.
Altizer said the rumor might have stemmed from something he said in explaining the link between smart road traffic loads and 3A's I-81 interchange. "We certainly do not intend that to be the position of the department, to be holding one over the other," Altizer said. "I'm sorry if it got misconstrued that way. I certainly didn't intend it that way."
The Board of Supervisors' upcoming decision has to do with the smart road's path across land that's in county Agricultural and Forestal District 7. (The right of way crosses three private landowners' property in the district, including a tract owned by Joe Stewart, the board's longest-serving member, who previously has voted for the road.) In accordance with state law, the supervisors must decide if taking the land for the road project would have an "adverse effect" on state or county policy and whether it "is necessary to provide service to the public in the most economical and practicable manner."
The county Planning Commission has voted 6-1 that the taking "might have an unreasonably adverse effect." Yet the county's Advisory Committee on Agricultural and Forestal Districts came to a consensus that the acquisition would not have such an effect.
Before making their decision Nov. 20, the supervisors will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Montgomery County Courthouse.
Such a situation - the state seeking to take land for a public highway in a county-designated conservation area - apparently has never come up before, according to Transportation Department and Montgomery County officials.
If the Board of Supervisors did buck precedent and vote that the smart-road land taking conflicted with the county's agricultural land-preservation policy, the state could appeal the decision to Montgomery Circuit Court.
by CNB