ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
The Commonwealth Transportation Board this week launched a comprehensive study of Interstate 81's future, looking at how much and where the 30-year-old highway should be widened.
The board is examining such issues as what parts of the road should be expanded to six or eight lanes and how technology should be used to manage traffic on the highway in the future.
I-81 soon will have its own newsletter, the ``I-81 Update," the first issue of which is expected to be in the mail by the end of the month.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has estimated that it will take more than 20 years to widen Virginia's 325-mile stretch of I-81 at a cost, spread over a number of years, of at least $2billion.
VDOT officials have divided the project into 10 study areas, which will be reviewed by private engineering firms working under contract with the state.
The first of those studies - which include land and traffic surveys and environmental and historical analyses - began in January, and the last should be under way by next month. The studies, which will cost about $25million, are expected to take 18 months.
VDOT officials expect to use new technologies in the widening of the road. Next year, private companies will be invited to demonstrate proven technologies on different sections of the road. One such method, the department said, might detect traffic backups electronically and transmit information about detours to message signs along the road.
I-81 is Virginia's longest interstate, traveling through 21 cities and towns and 32 counties representing a total population of 1.2 million. The road carries 20,000 to 50,000 vehicles a day, a traffic count that has more than doubled in the past 20 years and tripled in urban areas.
James Browder, VDOT's chief engineer, told the board that the road has become a favorite north-south route for truckers. The road was designed to handle 15 percent truck traffic, but now trucks represent 19 percent to 40 percent of the vehicles on the road, depending on location.
The highway's age and traffic volume and the high rate of growth in Western Virginia are putting serious strains on the road, Browder said.
State planners began talking about the need to widen parts of I-81, including the section around Roanoke, in the late 1980s, about the same time the road was completed through Virginia. Only recently have they begun considering the needs of the road in its entirety.
VDOT Commissioner David Gehr said the state wants residents and organizations outside of VDOT involved in the planning. The department's consultants will conduct two public meetings in each of the 10 study areas, he said.
A public meeting should be conducted in the Bristol area early next year. The first widening of I-81 should occur as early as next summer near Bristol on a seven-mile stretch north from the Tennessee line, the department said.
Public meetings also are to be conducted early in 1997 in the Roanoke County-Montgomery County area to discuss widening of the road from Christiansburg to U.S. 11 south of Buchanan in Botetourt County. That 40-mile stretch of interstate, as well as a section near James Madison University in Harrisonburg, is expected to get priority as the construction phase begins, VDOT officials said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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