ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010038
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
The proposed recreation center will be on the agenda for Town Council's Tuesday meeting, and council may vote on the controversial project then, amid calls by a council candidate to build an aquatics center first.
Bob Abraham, one of eight candidates for three seats in the Tuesday Christiansburg council election, said at a candidates forum Monday that more people, especially children and seniors, would use a separate indoor aquatics center than would use a recreation center.
A swimming pool is in phase three of the town's 10-year recreation plan, but Abraham in recent days has floated the idea of building the pool first.
Other candidates Monday suggested building a pool inside the recreation center, while still others, including the two incumbents, supported an incremental approach to constructing recreation facilities, as laid out in the town's recreation plan.
Some candidates supported using the town's good credit rating to finance earlier construction of the aquatics center.
Town Manager John Lemley said he hoped to have answers Tuesday to the many questions raised at a work session last week on the recreation center.
The center has been a key issue in this spring's election for three of Town Council's seven seats. The terms of those elected or re-elected next week won't begin until Sept. 1, presumably long after the recreation center decision has been made.
Also at Monday's forum, Dan Brugh, resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, said plans for the widening of Peppers Ferry Road call for construction to be complete by late 1999.
Construction in the $4 million project would begin in the summer of 1998. Plans will be available for public review this summer in Brugh's office, and he will schedule a public hearing for August or September.
The plans call for turning Peppers Ferry Road into a five-lane thoroughfare between its intersection with U.S. 460 and the town limits. The road will have bicycle lanes and sidewalks.
Brugh said about 20,000 vehicles each day travel on the road, making it one of the busiest primary roads in the 12-county VDOT Salem district.
The road "was not designed for the traffic that's on it now," Brugh said.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB