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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994                   TAG: 9403120013
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MARTINSVILLE

IF PROPOSED Interstate 73 is routed south from the New River and Roanoke valleys, through the U.S. 220 corridor to the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina, it could bring a much-needed boost to the industrial communities in between.

The 90-mile Roanoke-to-Greensboro stretch of U.S. 220 abuts no major metropolitian areas, but the counties along the way are deceptively populous. A total of about 200,000 people live in Rockingham County, N.C., and in Martinsville city and Franklin and Henry counties of Virginia.

Those places, however, are not doing well. The Martinsville-Henry area, for example, lost 3,000 - or 30 percent - of its industrial jobs between 1985 and 1992. One difficulty has been the obsolescence of U.S. 220, which in effect keeps the region landlocked.

Considered state of the art when built nearly a half-century ago, the Virginia portion of the road - a four-lane, divided highway - served well for years. The North Carolina portion has been worse. But even the Virginia portion, with its curves and hills, and multiple accesses, is inadequate for today's vehicles moving at today's speeds in today's volume.

Industries along that corridor need to get their goods to market; continued isolation will only further the erosion of jobs. Indeed, gas and burger sales at new interstate interchanges, the basis for VDOT's economic-impact analysis, are the least of the prospective benefits. Far more important are the indirect benefits.

They exist not merely in vague dreams of future progress. In the Martinsville-Henry area, they exist also in the hope of meeting current needs whose urgency is manifestly evident.

by CNB