ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
MEMO: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
Call it the Jim and Madison show.
Del. Jim Shuler and state Sen. Madison Marye, Montgomery County's Democratic legislators, took on the "smart" highway during a folksy, low-key legislative breakfast Tuesday with about 30 members of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce.
One part amounted to a friendly point/counterpoint on the controversial high-tech highway that would link Blacksburg with Interstate 81 and serve as a prototype for new computer-assisted technology designed to improve traffic safety.
The issue has relevance to General Assembly members because the legislature may in the future consider including funding for the road in a bond package, as it did in 1992 before then-Gov. Douglas Wilder vetoed it.
Shuler, breaking a previous public silence on the issue, endorsed the smart highway for its potential economic gain. Marye has long opposed the project and Tuesday called for building a smart road and New River bridge between Blacksburg and the New River Valley Airport in Dublin instead.
During his first campaign in 1993, Shuler declined to comment on the smart highway because at the time plans called for his veterinary office to be demolished to build the road's interchange with Blacksburg. Since then, plans have changed. His Companion Animal Clinic would be paved over instead by a portion the interchange for the U.S. 460 bypass connector, or Alternative 3A. The state is still negotiating to buy his property, Shuler said.
Shuler told chamber members - the Blacksburg chamber has long pushed for a more direct link between the town and Roanoke - that he expects the road to be built ultimately, whether as part of the proposed Michigan-to-South Carolina Interstate 73 or not.
"I've always supported the concept of the smart highway project because of the potential for the type of industries" that would prove vital to the New River Valley's future, Shuler said. "Personally, I think in time it will go forward and all these issues we've been working with will be worked out."
Though endorsing the smart road, Shuler said including the Bluefield-Blacksburg-Roanoke dogleg as part of the proposed I-73 didn't make much sense to him, except as a way to get money for a Roanoke-to-North Carolina connector into the federal funding pipeline.
Marye said he isn't opposed to smart-road technology, just to the highway's proposed path in the 5.8 miles between southern Blacksburg and Interstate 81, some 2.5 miles north of Christiansburg exit 118.
Yet he poked a little fun at the concept.
"Where are the smart cars going to go? If it takes a smart road to run the smart cars, where are the smart cars going to go? That's the part that I don't understand," he said.
Virginia Tech official Larry Hincker chimed in from the audience: "They're not going to go anywhere, Madison, until we have a place to test them."
Tech, through its Center for Transportation Research, says developing the smart road could bring as much as $100 million in direct research funding to the university and private industry in the region. Critics say those numbers are smoke and mirrors meant to build political support.
Last month, the smart highway hit a roadblock before the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, prompting the Blacksburg chamber, among other groups, to urge its 520 members in a Dec. 5 memo to call the seven supervisors and urge them to support the project.
Monday, the Montgomery board adopted an application process so the Virginia Department of Transportation can seek to acquire, by condemnation if necessary, the right-of-way for the road in a county conservation district.
The land-condemnation issue likely will return before the Montgomery board early next year. VDOT resident engineer Dan Brugh said Tuesday he will seek to fill out the application - it includes 92 questions - as soon as possible to continue working toward a schedule of grading the first 1.7 miles for the road between Blacksburg and the Ellett Valley for a "test bed" by late next year.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB