Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511290072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Virginia won't push the "smart" highway forward until Montgomery County comes up with the additional questions it has about the project, a member of Gov. George Allen's cabinet said Tuesday.
That could happen as soon as Dec. 11. The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has no scheduled meetings after that until January, when a smart road supporter, Larry Linkous, departs the board and a new member, Mary Biggs, takes her seat.
Linkous, the board chairman, said it is unlikely the board would call a special meeting before his term ends because one member will be out of town for the rest of December.
A Democrat elected without opposition this month, Biggs said Monday she was undecided on the issue.
The board split 4-3 against the road last week, then swung back 5-2 to rescind its vote Monday.
Transportation Secretary Robert Martinez said Tuesday that highway planners will wait and see what questions the Board of Supervisors has, then try to be as responsive as possible.
He had no estimate of how that process could affect plans to begin grading the first two miles of the road by next October. Those first two miles are to be used to test new technologies for speeding travel and improving highway safety.
"It depends on the level of questions and how much information they ask for," Martinez said.
On Monday, the board rescinded a Nov. 20 resolution that would have blocked the Virginia Department of Transportation from condemning approximately 140 acres of private land in a county agricultural and forest district.
After that, the board accepted VDOT's withdrawal of a letter of intent to condemn the proposed right of way.
The effect of the moves was to turn the clock back to before the state filed its intent to condemn the land in September.
The Board of Supervisors also set up a staff committee to come up with a format and questions for VDOT for the next time it files a letter of intent.
That committee - the county administrator, county attorney, planning director and economic development director - is aiming to report back to the Board of Supervisors by Dec. 11, said Assistant County Administrator Jeff Lunsford. After reviewing the questions, the board presumably would pass them on to VDOT.
The questions might include possible alternative routes for the road that would not pass through an agricultural and forest district, the exact boundaries of the proposed right of way, and more information on the impact that not building the smart highway would have on the U.S. 460 bypass connector.
Martinez, who earlier said his staff might have cost estimates on the bypass connector revisions by this week, said Tuesday that any such "quick and dirty" analysis now would be put aside for a more thorough review.
Monday's action means the issue will be coming back, with road opponents and supporters likely to be lobbying board members even more intensely than they did this month in a public hearing and by telephone.
The Sierra Club New River Group, a key opponent to the Ellett Valley route, doesn't see how the state would be able to show the road would not have an adverse impact on the agricultural and forest district, said Chairwoman Shireen Parsons.
"It's going to be built on the same house of cards," she said. "From our point of view, there is not justification for this highway."
Ken Anderson, head of a Blacksburg engineering firm that does work on highway projects, said he'd been working for a more direct link with Roanoke since 1984. Focusing just on the highway's impact on the agricultural district misses the point. "The question really should have been what's in the best interest of the county," Anderson said. Supervisor Joe Gorman, the swing vote both last week and Monday, said he wants "to find some way to keep it out of the environment-versus-economic development-fire."
Supervisor Joe Stewart, who voted against the smart road last week and changed his vote this week, said he wants to see alternative routes. "I'm not opposing the smart road, I never have," he said. "I do oppose building it where they propose building. ... Why do you want to build a road in the sky? It would cost millions and millions to put the road there."
The smart road design includes a 1,900-foot-long bridge across the Ellett Valley at Wilson Creek that would stand 175 feet high. Two smaller bridges would be used to avoid cutting off access to hollows between Wilson and Den creeks, in the area now included in the agricultural district.
by CNB