Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220043
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As if asleep at the wheel, the divided board Monday night lurched into a tailspin - reversing six years of supporting the highway - and came jerking to a stop where it is sure to back up traffic, as well as block progress on a project of great importance to the county and the region.
Voting 4-3, the board barred the state from acquiring private land needed for the six-mile link between Blacksburg and Interstate 81. The hope is that, as they mull over its implications, supervisors will revisit their vote.
After all, to let this decision stand would:
Lend credence to exaggerated fears about the environmental impact. Though it would condemn land in a conservation area, a step not to be taken lightly, the project would require only 140 acres of a 2,800-acre district. The county's Advisory Committee for Agricultural and Forestal Districts said this wouldn't constitute a significant adverse impact. Meantime, supervisors have granted requests for withdrawal of land from agricultural districts to build subdivisions.
In the Ellett Valley, hundreds of building lots have been or are under development. The smart road would go through the handsome valley, but with no interchanges - no way to get off.
Make the effects of growth in the New River Valley worse, not better. Not only would killing the smart road delay construction of Alternative 3A, a new bypass of U.S. 460 urgently needed to ease congestion now choking the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area. It also would require adding new lanes to 3A and redesigning an interchange - at considerable cost and greater loss of neighboring homes and businesses.
Growth will happen; the point is to plan for it. Contrary to naysayers' claims, 3A is not a substitute for the smart road; the two both are needed, complementary and interdependent. Even if six lanes parallel to the existing four-lane road were built, they would not handle the projected traffic load.
Meantime, the smart highway is supposed to serve as a stretch of the federally approved I-73. Where will all that interstate traffic end up if the smart road is scratched?
Squander a chance to draw the region closer together. Benefits aren't limited to time saved between Blacksburg and the Roanoke Valley. Like it or not, the region that includes Virginia Tech and Roanoke is increasingly a single economic entity. The two valleys don't compete against each other so much as they compete, as one, for good jobs against other regions across the globe. The smart road would be an important regional link, carrying symbolic as well as material benefits travelling in both directions.
Throw away an opportunity to become a major research center for a multi-billion-dollar industry. This would be the real scandal if supervisors killed the smart road. Tech officials hope the highway would serve not only as a test bed for Intelligent Vehicle/Highway Systems - computerized safety devices and the like. It could become a national prototype for automatic driving technology.
As much as $100 million in research funding over 20 years is the estimated potential, with another $300 million in local economic spinoffs, from both growing new companies and attracting high-tech businesses. Can anyone suggest another industry with as much potential for bringing high-paying jobs to Southwestern Virginia?
We hope the board's vote proves a bump in the road, not the end of it.
by CNB