DATE: Wednesday, July 9, 1997               TAG: 9707090444

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARK CLOTHIER, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE 

DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                        LENGTH:   86 lines

ALLEN, VDOT, TECH PRESIDENT BREAK GROUND ON ``SMART ROAD''

BLACKSBURG - For a ceremonial groundbreaking of a high-tech ``smart'' road, the tech was surprisingly low.

A six-piece band played the theme from ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' as ceremonial golden shovels turned ceremonial dirt. A Virginia Tech official took the stage and played straight man to a wisecracking robot named Spanky. A snowmaking tower was foiled by wind.

And as 30 people staged a peaceful protest, three others who used an electronic bullhorn were arrested.

After years of discussion and controversy, the long-planned highway between Blacksburg and Interstate 81 got out of the courtrooms and off the drawing boards Tuesday in an event attended by 400 people, including Gov. George F. Allen.

Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen announced that the university will spend $1.3 million over the next two years for laboratory equipment at Tech's Center for Transportation Research, which is leading the academic side of the smart road project.

Allen pointed to the empty field that next summer will be the paved start of the smart road. ``Inventions made on that field - this one right over there - will completely transform the way we look at travel,'' he said.

A few minutes into his speech, Allen was interrupted by environmental lawyer Tom Linzey, who was voicing his opposition through a bullhorn from the back of a pickup in a parking lot at Federal-Mogul Corp. next to the ceremony's site.

After a minute or two of trying to compete, Allen called on some of the more peaceful, sign-holding, protesters to ask the bullhorn-wielder to stop. They stayed put. Then the governor asked the crowd under the tent if they could hear him. They cheered ``yes,'' and the speech continued.

Linzey, 28, a Pennsylvania-based attorney for environmental groups that have challenged the road in court, was charged with trespassing on Federal-Mogul property. Radford University professor Justin Askins, 46, and Shireen Parsons, 53, a former Riner resident now living in North Carolina, were also charged with trespassing.

When Ray Pethtel, associate director of Virginia Tech's Center for Transportation Research, took the stage, he told Allen, ``I hope you know there's a lot more people who support the project than oppose it. That's the way it's been all along.''

At first, the smart road will be a 1.7-mile cul-de-sac that will be used to test intelligent transportation equipment starting next summer. Construction on a $12.5 million bridge over Wilson Creek in the Ellett Valley will start in March and take two years to finish. By 2002, two lanes of the road could reach Interstate 81. A second two lanes are supposed to link southern Blacksburg to I-81 sometime between 2015 and 2020, when VDOT officials estimate it will be needed to relieve traffic in Montgomery County.

Opponents have opposed the highway on two levels. They consider it an environmental blight on a mostly rural valley and they call it redundant. They claim that the as-yet-unbuilt Alternative 3A, a bypass connector also designed to relieve traffic in the congested U.S. 460 retail corridor, will suffice.

The road project has withstood three legal challenges from environmental groups and awaits possibly two more. One case, dismissed before trial last week, is likely to be appealed this week. Another appeal is to be heard in August in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

For a ceremonial groundbreaking of the high-tech smart road - the first of its kind built from the ground up - the tech was surprisingly low. VDOT and Tech paid half the $10,000 it cost to put on the show. Corporate and other donations provided the other half.

A six-piece band's performance of the theme from ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' as golden shovels turned the ceremonial dirt was almost the high-tech high point.

Pethtel took the stage and played straight man to a wisecracking robot named Spanky.

And one of the 73 planned snow-making towers was on display. The 40-foot towers will line a half-mile of the test bed, providing fog and snow for foul-weather tests. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A road sign preoccupies Ellen, 5, and Andrew, 3, children of

Virginia Department of Transportation assistant resident engineer

David Clarke.

Graphic

Western Virginia

Smart Road KEYWORDS: SMART ROAD

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