ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: what's on your mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: How do our current tax rates compare to the taxes levied on the American colonists in the 1700s when they overthrew the British government for being overtaxed?
S.H., Roanoke
A: The colonists had it easy in terms of tax load, especially if they avoided buying imported or luxury items.
Average colonial Americans in the 1760s paid about 5 percent of their income in taxes, said Dan Thorp, a history professor at Virginia Tech. He found the information in the Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies, researched by eminent historians.
Today we're paying about 38 percent in taxes.
But while colonists had it easy with taxes, life was hard. They got almost no services from the government - perhaps some minor road improvements or a courthouse, but no interstates and few schools.
The tax issue in colonial times was tied more to freedom than it was to its economic impact on most colonists. There was no income tax.
England's stamp taxes worked like a sales tax on imported goods.
Americans who paid the most were merchants and others who bought goods straight off the ship, such as plantation owners and other "George Washington types."
Not an interstate
Q: Why doesn't the interstate highway designation for I-581 go all the way from Elm Avenue to Tanglewood Mall? This stretch of road is called U.S. 220 and the name change is confusing to people. Since it was widened to six lanes a couple of years ago, it seems to be of interstate-quality construction. C.P., Roanoke
A: The construction upgrade in 1995 was a great improvement to U.S. 220 - the Roy Webber Highway - but it's still not up to interstate standards.
The curves are too sharp and the shoulders aren't wide enough. We can't drive it safely at 65 mph, the way we could most interstates if traffic congestion wasn't a factor.
Interstates have wide, paved shoulders and an inside shoulder as well. Not so with the Webber Highway.
Those curves near Tanglewood Mall and just south of Elm Avenue are designed for primary roads' 55 mph speed limit, VDOT says.
The widening from four lanes to six, completed between March and October of 1995, accomplished a valuable thing: There have been no more traffic fatalities.
Eight people died there between 1991 and the start of 1995. Most of the deaths involved excessive speed and some of them intoxication as well.
Police say radar enforcement is more effective now, too.
The transportation people are on the verge of studying a route for the proposed Interstate 73, which will roughly follow the course of U.S. 220 to North Carolina.
We're not attempting to read tea leaves here, but the consultant being hired for this task almost certainly will consider further widening and straightening of the Webber Highway to route I-73 through Roanoke.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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