ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996                 TAG: 9604090062
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: CLAYTON BRADDOCK 

PEMBROKE BRIDGE COMING ALONG

The new bridge (above) across the New River at Virginia 623 in Pembroke is not complete but it's getting closer, said David Clarke, assistant resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation office in Christiansburg.

A summer completion date is expected for the new $2.5 million structure, begun in the summer of 1994.

When motorists make the trip across, they may see something different. Piers in the understructure look more like cut stone than steel, Clarke said.

The new bridge has 10-foot lanes and 6-foot shoulders. The old bridge, the only steel-span structure in Virginia, may be torn down eventually, but not until the state has found groups willing to take sections of it, Clark said.

"We have a couple of them we're talking to now," he said. If such groups don't claim those parts of the bridge, it will come down. VDOT will give them six months, he said. "If they haven't accepted it by fall, we might extend it to spring," he said.

LENGTH: Short :   29 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Gene Dalton. color.