Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
State Transportation Secretary Robert Martinez said planners will prepare a new cost estimate for upgrading the planned road between the Blacksburg and Christiansburg bypasses of U.S. 460, known as Alternative 3A, to handle traffic that otherwise would have used the smart road.
If the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors still opposes the smart road after considering the full ramifications of its action, Martinez said, the road may be history.
"I am not in the business of pushing projects that people do not want," Martinez said. "I have a lot of other places that we can invest the money without having to put it in places that people don't want it."
The secretary's comments came as Roanoke, Virginia Tech and Blacksburg smart-road advocates shook their heads in dismay and environmentalists applauded after the first official rebuke to the smart highway.
Reversing seven previous votes since April 1989, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Monday took a stand against the state's proposed condemnation of 140 acres of private rural land between Wilson and Den creeks for the highway.
The 4-3 reversal was astonishing, particularly given the board's propensity to embrace almost anything billed as a boon to economic development.
"The Board of Supervisors has sent a message that they have heard the people of Montgomery County," said Don Schumacher, a spokesman for the New River Valley Environmental Coalition. "By my guess, the vast majority are against this project."
Yet Martinez said it was unfair for the board to reverse its history of support for the project, on which the state has spent $2.2 million so far. "If they were going to have taken this decision, they should have taken it a few years ago," he said.
Martinez, though, does not favor appealing the board's decision to the Montgomery County Circuit Court, as the law allows.
Gordon Willis Sr., president of Rockydale Quarries and chairman of a smart road lobbying group, the University Connection, said the millions that have been spent to carry the project this far is "a lot of money to throw down the drain."
The University Connection - a coalition of academic, government and business leaders from the New River and Roanoke valleys - hasn't met in some time. "We thought our work was essentially done, but that's apparently not the case," Willis said. He hasn't decided whether to call the group together.
Should the smart road die, there would be at least three effects:
Alternative 3A would grow in complexity, cost and construction time.
Right now, 3A - the 4.4-mile bypass of the Peppers Ferry Road area and the 1.05-mile link to Interstate 81 beside Falling Branch Elementary School - is estimated to cost $135.3 million. Construction is to begin in 1999.
The major impact, from the county's perspective, would be on changes to 3A's planned interchange with I-81 in Christiansburg. Having a full interchange there is critical to developing a new industrial park nearby. Without the smart road, planners say, the I-81 link may need to be a limited, high-speed ramp system similar to the I-81 and Interstate 581 link near Roanoke. Members of the Board of Supervisors say they've been assured by Martinez that the industrial park still will have I-81 access even without the smart road.
Alternative 3A also likely would become the path for the proposed Detroit-to-South Carolina highway, Interstate 73, said Lorinda Lionberger, who represents the Salem district on the Commonwealth Transportation Board. The smart road is a key component of I-73, which is to follow U.S. 460 from West Virginia, pick up the smart highway at Blacksburg and connect to I-81 on its way to I-581 and U.S. 220 down to North Carolina.
"The effects of this could be very far-reaching," said Lionberger, a staunch supporter of both projects. She called the county's vote a "supreme disappointment."
Virginia Tech stands to lose its status as a major player in a $200 million corporate-academic consortium researching so-called "smart" technologies to improve road and vehicle safety. Tech stands to gain an estimated $100 million in direct research money for the smart road and an estimated $300 million in related, long-term economic development, according to Ray Pethtel, interim director of the university's Center for Transportation Research.
"I don't view this as a fatal decision on the smart road yet," he said. "We have to wait and see what the ultimate outcome of this decision is."
"It's a major blow to our area in terms of getting high-paying jobs," said Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who represents half of Montgomery County. "It will have far more impact to the negative than any budget cuts proposed to Virginia Tech by [former Gov. Douglas] Wilder or [Gov. George] Allen,"
Advocates of improved physical and psychological ties between Virginia Tech and Roanoke will suffer a major setback. The smart road was a top priority for the New Century Council, a volunteer, state-funded group that created a framework to improve the quality of life for 400,000 Western Virginians from Alleghany to Pulaski counties. Much of its vision is based on regional cooperation.
Now, with Montgomery County "reneging on a deal, it can't help but affect the relationship of the future," said Steve Musselwhite, a former Commonwealth Transportation Board member from Vinton.
"I'm sure the members of the county board voted what they felt was in the best interest of the county," Pethtel said. "I certainly don't think it sends a very positive signal to Virginia Tech or the hundreds of volunteers who have been seeking to form a vision for the Roanoke and New River valleys."
The board decided Monday on two factors: whether the state's condemnation of land for the road would negatively affect the county's Agricultural and Forestal District 7; and whether the road would provide a needed economic service to the public.
Based on Monday's debate, the economic arguments against the $103 million road appeared to hold more sway, particularly for the two supervisors who changed their votes from the board's last 5-2 endorsement of the project, in February 1992.
"It's going to cost more than any other road ever built in this part of the country, and it's going nowhere," said Supervisor Joe Stewart, one of the two.
Supervisor Joe Gorman has had detailed questions for weeks, but until Monday had given no indication he'd changed his mind. Gorman acknowledged the road's environmental impact, but said the state had provided "insufficient data" to demonstrate it was necessary.
Gorman said Tuesday he probably wouldn't change his mind even in the face of new Alternative 3A cost estimates. "That smart road is more important to Virginia Tech interests than it is to constituent interests," Gorman said.
Stewart and Gorman were joined by longtime smart-road foes Nick Rush, who also cited the cost, and Jim Moore, who took more of an environmental tack.
Most Blacksburg Town Council members contacted Tuesday said they were disappointed by the board's decision.
Staff writers Cathryn McCue and Elissa Milenky contributed information to this story.
by CNB