ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609090055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SERIES: ROANOKE'S RAPIDS
FIRST OF A SERIES
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
COMMUTERS ON I-81 say the increasing traffic is bad news, but the growing number of tractor-trailer trucks using the road is even scarier.
Interstate 81 through the Roanoke and New River valleys is one of the most scenic highways in the United States, but many who travel it say they hesitate to take their eyes off the road.
The reason is the traffic. Increasing numbers of drivers have discovered Virginia's western interstate. The most noticeable - and the most feared and criticized - are the semitrailer truck drivers that haul products between the North and the South and back.
"The traffic seems to be real heavy - heavier than it used to be," says John Lipscomb, a Roanoke real estate appraiser and investor who lives in Botetourt County. "The Fincastle exit has gotten especially tough, especially the tractor-trailer traffic. Unless you use it regularly, you have no idea how heavy it is."
Lin Scruggs commutes on I-81 from her home in Roanoke County to her job in the math department at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
"Certain days of the week are worse than others," she says. "Mondays usually aren't too bad. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the pits, and Friday's variable You have to expect your speed to vary between 35 and 80 for self-preservation."
The subject reminds her of a joke: Why do travelers on I-81 have car phones?
"So you can hit dial-a-prayer when a truck comes up behind you," she says.
State transportation officials recognize that the four lanes of I-81 long ago ceased being a serene path through lovely countryside. Traffic volume is increasing by 4 percent per year. By the end of this year, consultants will be studying the entire road to determine the need for widening, says Laura Bullock, information officer at VDOT's Salem district office.
All of it will be widened eventually, she says. "What hasn't been determined is the total number of lanes needed, and where." Public meetings may be held by next summer.
In the mid-1960s, the scales at VDOT's weigh station in Troutville processed 25,000 trucks per month, or about 300,000 per year.
By 1991, the figure had risen to 32,000 per week, or 1.6 million per year. That's more than five times the earlier figure.
Today, the newer weigh-in-motion facility takes the measure of some 60,000 trucks per week, or about 3 million per year. That's nearly double what it was five years ago, and about 10 times greater than the figure from the 1960s.
Traffic on the commuter-crowded, 2.7-mile section from the junction with Interstate 581 to the Plantation Road exit is estimated at 50,000 vehicles per day, second only to the volume around Staunton. That adds up to 350,000 per week, or about 18 million per year. To appreciate that figure, imagine every resident of the city of Los Angeles driving that stretch - five times.
When I-81 was designed more than 30 years ago, trucks were expected to contribute 15 percent of the traffic mix throughout its 328 mile length. Today, trucks account for 19 percent to 40 percent of the overall volume within its statewide boundaries, from Bristol to Winchester.
Overall, truck traffic is heavier on Interstate 95 in eastern Virginia, but, at 12 percent to 20 percent, the truck density is less. In January 1995, the Troutville weigh station processed 212,000 trucks, second to the Dumfries station on I-95. The Dumfries station did 233,000.
The trucks' size and speed, and the way some truckers drive them, anger and frighten many who use I-81.
Lynn Davis of Roanoke took a job at Virginia Tech about four years ago. She switched from the interstate to U.S. 11-460 and country roads almost immediately. Trucks were the major factor.
"If they were the ordinary, old-timey trucks, it would be OK," she says. "But they are supersonic trucks."
Recently, while driving her fellow carpoolers on a short stretch of the interstate, "I passed a truck and I said, `Hey, look at that.' It was bigger than a train - wider, taller, longer than a train car. We've got these trains now on 81 If anything happens, it's all over."
Truckers dismiss the four-wheelers' fears.
"81 ain't near as bad as 64, going to the beach," said Don Hinchey of Yorktown, refueling at the Troutville truck stop while motoring from Syracuse to Shreveport with a load of plastic to be used in telephones. "I like being on the west side of Virginia."
"In Virginia, it's a good, straight 81," said Larry Orey, who lives in Granger, Iowa, and who was sharing his cab with his 10-year-old son. "You get up in Pennsylvania, and it's a piece of trash."
Speed, volume, construction projects and the mix of cars and trucks all have prompted the state police to give I-81 increased attention, said Capt. Charles Compton Jr. of the Salem Division.
Among their tools:
*Keeping troopers on the highway as much as possible in the four counties it passes through.
*Equipping their cruisers with "push bumpers" to enable them to clear lanes at accident scenes.
*Developing an "incident management plan" with alternative routes for traffic when accidents create long backups.
*When necessary, using VDOT's heavy equipment to expedite crash scene cleanups.
I-81 is "not getting any better due to the volume of traffic," Compton says. "I sit down here and I feel like it's one of the worst problems in the world, and then I went to a retirement dinner for a lieutenant in Norfolk. Traveling to Tidewater and back, I realized there are traffic problems as great as ours in other parts of the state, and some places even worse."
Monday: No love lost between trucks and cars.
LENGTH: Long : 114 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. File/Nov. 27, 1995 A long stream of traffic moves onby CNBI-81 as viewed from atop Tinker Mountain. color
2. ERIC BRADY STAFF The VDOT weigh station in Troutville processes
an average of 60,000 trucks per week.
3. Lynn Davis gets ready to commute with her other carpoolers,
Richard Lovegrove and Michele Moldenhauer. The three meet in Salem
and drive on back roads to Blacksburg.
4. chart - I-81 in Virginia includes color map STAFF KEYWORDS: MGR