ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250047
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
Residents of Dry Run Road say they'd love to have the kinds of roads that other people were complaining about to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Monday.
Dry Run Road stretches between Catawba and Mount Tabor roads in a rural area northeast of Blacksburg. Its residents laid out a multitude of complaints about the road to the supervisors and Virginia Department of Transportation officials during a public hearing on the six-year improvement plan for secondary roads in Montgomery County.
More than 70 people attended the hearing, with around 20 speakers touching on about 10 different roads they think should be on the priority list for paving and repairs or should be adopted into the state system in the first place.
The hearing is an annual ritual in Montgomery County, which has about 125 miles of unpaved roads. The waiting list for pavement is long and the money the state allots per year - usually about $1.5 million - only covers about two miles of paving.
Jim Doss showed the supervisors a videotape that captured - despite Dry Run's name - the recent watery conditions. He and his neighbors complained of open fords in the creek that are difficult for cars to pass through.
"We have to negotiate running through water every day of the year," said Doss, who has been stranded four times this year because the water was too high to drive through.
He said residents want low-water bridges or culverts installed on the state-maintained road.
"We spent this weekend pulling people out of creeks. ... We just have a terrible time down there," Doss said.
The county school system will not send a school bus on the road because of its conditions. The stream crosses the road several times and there's no place for a bus to turn around, according to a letter from Larry Schoff, the school's director of facility maintenance and transportation.
Schoff asked that low-water crossings estimated to cost $10,000 each be installed at those places.
Other Dry Run residents complained the road's remoteness attracted a criminal element because, they said, even sheriff's deputies are reluctant to travel the road without a four-wheel drive vehicle. They complained of suspected drug deals, finding marijuana patches and of people using the road as a lovers' lane.
About a dozen residents of Coal Hollow Road, a two-mile link between Peppers Ferry Road at Laurel Creek Nursery and Prices Fork Road, also attended the meeting to plead for improvements.
James Walters, who has lived on the road for 40 years, said 27 families using multiple cars regularly use the road, and it is becoming a popular bypass for commuters who want to avoid traffic congestion on Peppers Ferry Road.
"We're 10 minutes from the [New River Valley] mall. ... This road should have been paved 20 years ago. There's no excuse," Walters said.
He bemoaned the lack of guardrails or school bus stop signs on the road.
"We have one pole down there with a reflector on it. I don't know if it fell off the state truck or what," Walters said to chuckles in one of the several moments of levity in the 90-minute hearing.
Residents of Piney Woods Road in Riner, Catawba Road and Georges Run Road near Alleghany Springs also asked for improvements. They complained of being pushed back in the improvement plan, of being placed on the list then removed, or of being ignored.
More than one speaker took a swipe at the "smart" road, wondering why millions could be spent on that Virginia Tech-favored project but money wasn't available to fix roads that had sat unpaved for years.
Dan Brugh, VDOT's resident engineer at its Christiansburg office, tried to deflect those comments by explaining that road funding formulas are set by the legislature, and different amounts of money are set aside for primary roads and secondary roads.
"You can't just say we don't build the smart road and pave every road in Montgomery County," Brugh said.
The supervisors will adopt a revised plan after its road committee meets to evaluate the requests.
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. Wayne Edwards looks at potholes atby CNBthe end of the Norfolk Southern tunnel on Coal Hollow Road - a spot
that routinely floods. 2. Residents say Coal Hollow Road is becoming
a popular bypass for commuters who
want to avoid traffic congestion on Peppers Ferry Road. color.
Graphic: Map by staff. color.