ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610280027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURGI
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
An informational meeting on the proposed widening to four lanes of Peppers Ferry Road within town limits will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Christiansburg Municipal Building.
The widening, scheduled for 1998, will involve the one-mile stretch of Peppers Ferry Road (Virginia 114) from North Franklin Street (U.S. 460) at the New River Valley Mall to the western town limits of Christiansburg, near the Department of Motor Vehicles office.
Residents may attend the informal, open-house style meeting at any time. Plans for the project will be displayed and meeting participants may discuss the project with representatives from the Virginia Department of Transportation. No formal presentation will be given.
Traffic counts on the road have been rollercoastering in recent years. At first, traffic increased as a retail center began to develop in the corridor, but then was offset by layoffs at the nearby Radford Army Ammunition Plant and the closing of the AT&T plant.
With the 1990s commercial boom in the area, however, the number of cars traveling a part of the road jumped by more than 60 percent from 1989 to 1993, from 11,000 a day to 18,000.
In October 1995, three people died and four others were injured in a head-on collision that happened when one driver pulled across the double yellow lines near the Radford Arsenal to pass another car. The driver slammed his car into another. Both drivers and a passenger died. The crash was the worst since a 60-year-old Dublin woman and a 47-year-old Radford minister died in separate collisions in November and December 1994. Both wrecks happened when one vehicle strayed into the path of another coming the opposite way on the busy two-lane road.
In 185 accidents between 1990 and 1994, only five were attributed to driver speed while 125 were attributed to driver or pedestrian inattention.
Residents have said for years that the road needs to be widened along its full length, not just as it is now from Fairlawn in Pulaski County to the arsenal entrance. Though the state will widen the one-mile stretch that is within the town in 1998, expanding the remaining 4.5-mile stretch in Montgomery County to the arsenal entrance remains a long-term project.
For now, Montgomery County is spending its highway money on other road projects, such as improving the even more heavily traveled U.S. 460 between Blacksburg and Christiansburg and the planned Alternative 3A, which will allow drivers to bypass 460's busiest stretch.
Written comments may be submitted at Tuesday's meeting or sent to VDOT within 10 days after the meeting.
For more information, call VDOT on Monday at 381-7200.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff. color.by CNB