Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 29, 1995 TAG: 9511300007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE AND TINA DAWSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Only 140 acres out of the 2,800 acres in an agricultural preservation zone, they say, and yet their own map shows a four-lane limited-access highway slashing directly through the heart of the district, like a razor blade across the Mona Lisa!
Squandering our chance for closer ties with Roanoke, they decry. Well, let's put this in perspective. If the future of the Roanoke and New River valleys hangs in the balance of whether a trip between the two is a few minutes shorter, then there isn't much of a connection to enhance. The Roanoke and New River valleys are decidedly different places. They both have their values, and they complement each other quite well.
Shoving the smart road and I-73 down the collective throats of the New River Valley, and destroying the values that make the New River Valley important for those living in metropolitan Roanoke, is shortsighted and mean-spirited. If we wanted to live in a metropolitan area, we would have moved to Roanoke (or perhaps Richmond or Washington) long ago.
Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen calls the smart road ``Montgomery County's Motorola,'' referring to the recent announcement of a new plant to be constructed near Richmond. But Motorola isn't asking Virginia taxpayers to build and maintain the plant. Calls to Montgomery County Supervisor Joe Gorman, running two-to-one against the road, should make it obvious that county residents neither buy this parallel nor have any interest in becoming like Richmond.
The New River Valley, with its mountains, forests, unspoiled farmlands and rural towns, is part of the quality of life, not only for residents who live here but also for city dwellers from Roanoke and elsewhere who visit our valley for a pleasant drive in the fall colors, a hike in the national forest or a float down the river that defines the valley. Inserting more high-speed highways than we already have will spell the end of that way of life as money speeds through rural areas, drying up small towns and businesses as it goes. The intrusion of such roads slashes across the very fabric of rural life, changing social dynamics and interdependencies.
The construction of four-lane U.S. 460 wrought such disruption in the '60s that it has taken decades for the situation to settle. Were there benefits? Sure there were, but less easy to measure were the human costs. Sure, the Hardee's in Pearisburg is doing well, but what happened to the home-grown eateries that served patrons and put dollars back into the community? Who will reimburse the losses of the present residents of Ellett Valley and those who will get suburbanized by the spread of Blacksburg fed by the touted smart-road industry? The loss of peace and quiet, the loss of a landscape to modern society's grossest intrusions, the loss of space, the loss of a way of life that makes rural people who they are.
Is there a need for a good transportation system in and through the New River Valley? Yes, but we have given up rural valleys for nationally important routes like I-81 and I-77. We have given up rural valleys for regionally important routes like U.S. 460, and hope the same will develop on U.S. 100. Now the time has come to cut the pork and the proliferation of arterial highways. Instead, we need to use and develop existing, important transportation corridors and leave what little is left of rural Virginia alone - alone to provide lives for residents and increasingly important havens for the larger populations of our urban East Coast to visit. These havens soothe the ills of that urban society.
You would think that after all the hoopla from the New Century Council about preserving our rural lands and scenic mountain resources that someone would see that these projects are headed in exactly the wrong direction. Perhaps those four members of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors are the first of a wave of clear thinkers who will look for solutions to our transportation problems without giving up the important values that make life in the New River Valley and, consequently, the Roanoke Valley, worth living.
Where, you ask, will all that interstate traffic from I-73 go? Once it has made it from Martinsville to I-581 on the new four-lane highway and on to I-81 as planned, it will drive a few more miles up I-81 to I-77, and on north to Bluefield and the split where I-73 and I-77 will diverge. Will it cost money to expand the dual interstate sections of I-81 and I-77? Sure it will, and maybe even more than an independent I-73 (although we doubt it). What it won't do is disrupt the lives of thousands more people and eat up dozens of miles of unspoiled rural valleys.
Congratulations to the enlightened supervisors of Montgomery County - smart people who see the real effects of a so-called smart road! It's true that the board and the Virginia Department of Transportation have stepped back from their confrontation so that the board can gather all the facts before making a final decision on the issue. It's unlikely that additional scrutiny will reveal anything more than a confirmation that the emperor has even fewer clothes than we thought. Perhaps VDOT will take this chance to truly consider the desires of New River Valley residents, and will incorporate the smart-road test bed into the 3A-bypass project that serves the needs of the area and leaves Ellett Valley unspoiled.
At a public meeting just a year ago concerning I-73, one of our neighbors pointed out that stores carry an item today that wasn't available in the rural stores of his boyhood - bottled spring water. People pay high prices for the product, but its value isn't due to what is in it but rather to what is not in it. Such are the values we should protect in our rural lands. We hope the board's next vote proves to be unnecessary or proves to be the end of the smart road in Ellett Valley!
Mike Dawson is regional representative for the Appalachian Trail Conference, and Tina Dawson is director of Community School in Roanoke. They live in Newport.
by CNB