Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 17, 1993 TAG: 9308170099
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Robert Fries
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So I'm nominating myself for a black belt when it comes to driving Interstate 81 between Christiansburg and Roanoke.
Over the past five years, circumstances have dictated that I live in Roanoke while working and attending college up here in the New River Valley.
That lifestyle's been pretty consumptive of three precious resources: air quality, fuel reserves and my spare time.
But it's given me a lot of time to think. Perhaps too much.
I suppose I shouldn't complain. After all, it's not like driving through Northern Virginia or Washington, where they invented gridlock.
And I'm certainly not alone. Lots of people migrate each day between the New River and Roanoke valleys to reach work or school.
We pass each other headed in opposite directions along I-81.
Nobody waves, though. I think we all share an experience I call "car karma," a period of automotive meditation that is often more vexing than relaxing.
On some days, it's like those football players you see smacking each other on the helmet to get psyched up for the big game.
I get a lot of negative inspiration from trucks. Anyone who's driven I-81 between Christiansburg and Roanoke has been bullied by tractor-trailers.
They hustle downslope on this hilly stretch of road like runaway freight trains.
Then they switch over, hog the left lane and crawl uphill while leading a string of cars who follow like frustrated ducklings.
Either the truckers who use I-81 are unfamiliar with the ups and downs of the road, or they don't care about clogging traffic. For sure, they ignore the speed limit.
I say get 'em off the road and put the cargo on a railroad flatbed car where it belongs. I'll gladly pay more for each product that that switch makes more expensive.
An anti-truck tirade wouldn't be necessary if I-81 weren't such a roller-coaster ride. That's the way it goes in mountainous country.
But who selected the route? Was the idea to build the road over the roughest terrain they could find? And as far away from Radford and Blacksburg as possible? If so, they succeeded.
You hear much talk these days about the proposed "smart" road to link Blacksburg and I-81. That new road is seen as a savior only because of "dumb" I-81.
Part of the "smart" road's proposed route is where the interstate should have been all along, following the Roanoke River's north fork uphill. That's where the railroad goes.
I'll bet that route would have been less expensive to build and much more convenient to use. But, hey, when it comes to big federal projects like building interstates, are those things really important?
Instead, we're left with bypassing the bypass via the Band-Aid "smart" road, which, we are told, will ease our commuting woes and magically bring Blacksburg and Roanoke closer together.
No one desires that the distance between those two points to shrink more than I do. I have a 1988 pickup with 144,991 miles on it - mostly accumulated between hither and yon - to prove it.
But people are coming up with some crazy ideas to bridge the distance, evidently from inhaling too many clouds of diesel exhaust fumes along I-81.
Roanoke and Virginia Tech have become like a co-dependent couple on one of those sleazy talk shows: Each is desperate for the other, and they are wooing each other with irrational, expensive gifts.
For the city, Tech is spending millions to buy and renovate the Hotel Roanoke, turning the building into a conference center that's more than 40 miles from campus.
For Tech, Roanoke is backing the proposed $82 million "smart" highway that will shave all of five minutes off the drive to Roanoke.
Here's a simple geography lesson: Roanoke is there and Virginia Tech's here and you can't change that fact until someone invents a "Star Trek"-like transporter beam or perfects virtual reality.
Until then, you have several alternatives:
\ 1. Move.
\ 2. Get another gig.
\ 3. Drive.
\ 4. Get yourself a newspaper column and complain a lot.
Along with many others, I've selected option 3. For several hours each workday, my life's path follows I-81, where - when you're not driven by boredom or terror - the scenery's not bad.
You're headed the right way when you see the sign down near Salem marking the interstate's bridge over Butt Hollow Road.
Robert Freis is a New River Valley bureau staff writer and a graduate student at Virginia Tech.
by CNB