
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 20, 1993                   TAG: 9311200171
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FRANKLIN                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. 58 WIDENING NEARLY DONE - UP TO SOUTH HILL

Construction crews scrambled to complete pavement striping this week as the final piece of a widened U.S. 58 between South Hill and Hampton Roads opened.

"Now it is wider, safer and much more pleasant to drive," state Transportation Commissioner Ray Pethtel said Thursday at a ceremony to celebrate the project's completion.

In 1987, the highway was mostly two lanes from Interstate 95 at Emporia to Suffolk, Pethtel said. Since then, various projects have made it a patchwork of two-lane and four-lane sections.

Widening the stretch between Emporia and Franklin, known as "suicide strip" because of its high number of fatalities, was completed in 1991. The latest projects included widening the bypasses around Emporia, Courtland and Franklin.

Eventually, Pethtel said, U.S. 58 - which runs along Virginia's southern border - will have four lanes from the southwest mountains near Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, thanks to a $600 million bond package approved by the General Assembly.

East of Suffolk, the Midtown Tunnel from Portsmouth to Norfolk is the only section of U.S. 58 that is not four lanes.

by CNB