Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505080040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., later agreed that having two new interstates was the way to satisfy groups in both Roanoke and Winston-Salem, each hoping to have a new interstate pass through their community.
What the senators came up with, however, was not what the Bluefield man and other I-73 boosters there had in mind. Now they are upset that I-73, which they conceived and nurtured to near reality, is being perverted by politicians. They plan to go to Washington in June or sooner to fight to protect their brainchild.
Warner incorporated his version of the two-interstate concept in National Highway System legislation that was approved last week by the Senate subcommittee on transportation and infrastructure, of which he is chairman. The full Senate Environment and Public Works Committee could take up the legislation this week.
A bill hasn't been introduced in the House of Representatives yet, but Congress is required by the 1991 federal highway bill to get National Highway System legislation on President Clinton's desk by Oct. 1. The bill will release billions of dollars to states for construction and upkeep of 159,000 miles of roads in the National Highway System. Those roads carry 40 percent of the nation's traffic and 75 percent of the truck traffic.
Virginia will get about $150 million a year as its share. Some of that money in "modest amounts" could be put into planning I-73 as early as next year, Virginia Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez said.
However, Martinez said funding for the actual construction of I-73 is "years away."
Under Warner's plan, I-73 would follow a route endorsed by the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board last year. The road would enter Virginia from the north at Bluefield, follow U.S. 460 to Blacksburg and go along the "smart" road to I-81. It would follow I-81 and I-581 to Roanoke and U.S. 220 to the North Carolina border west of Greensboro.
The legislation calls for another new interstate, to be called I-74. It would branch off from I-73 at Bluefield, follow I-77, and enter North Carolina near Mount Airy, the way North Carolina officials had originally wanted I-73 to enter their state. It is also the route that the road's Bluefield boosters had planned for I-73.
And, in what appears a blatant acknowledgement of the politics involved in road building, Warner was careful to spell out in his legislation that the two new routes were to be designated as interstate highways whether or not their addition to the interstate system makes sense to the secretary of transportation.
On March 9-10, the I-73/74 Corridor Association, a group of road proponents from several states, held its annual meeting in Wytheville. At that time, K.A. Ammar Jr. of Bluefield raised the idea of designating two new interstate routes in Virginia as a way of satisfying supporters of competing routes.
Martinez, Virginia's secretary of transportation, said the idea of two new interstates had been raised even earlier in his meetings with North Carolina highway officials. His office had communicated the idea to Warner, Martinez indicated.
Warner could not be contacted for his version of events leading up to the compromise. Ann Loomis, his aide for highway matters, would not talk publicly about the issue.
George Howard, a legislative aide to North Carolina Sen. Faircloth, said the compromise was a recognition of political reality. Warner had come to Faircloth, who also sits on the surface transportation subcommittee, and told him he planned to route I-73 through Roanoke. The compromise came from an understanding that Winston-Salem would be upset over the loss of I-73, Howard said.
Ammar and other Bluefield, W.Va., business people conceived I-73 in 1990 and have worked to promote the road in Congress and in the states through which it would pass. The group originally conceived an interstate linking Detroit with Charleston, S.C., but the northern terminus of I-73 has since been changed at Michigan's request to Grayling in north-central Michigan.
I-73's supporters in Bluefield aren't happy with the bill Warner introduced.
Although they supported designating two new interstates in Virginia to solve the border crossing dispute, they wanted I-73 to run along I-77 as they had originally planned and the Roanoke route to be designated I-74, said Nelson Walker, executive director of I-73/74 Corridor Association based in Bluefield.
He was concerned, Walker said, that I-74 might not be funded as soon as I-73, which was given the status of a "high priority" road in the 1991 federal highway bill. The dual designation also adds more mileage to the interstate system, which Congress might not accept, he said.
Ammar said the road Warner is calling I-73 is running east to west and should be called I-74 in line with standard road-numbering practice. That practice gives even numbers to east-west roads and odd numbers to north-south roads.
His group had been trying to talk with Warner since they first thought up I-73, but Warner has never talked with them, Ammar said. "We wanted at least to let our voice be heard," Ammar said.
Warner's decision to route I-73 through Roanoke was "to gain support of the Roanoke people for his re-election," Walker said.
Also unhappy with the Warner-Faircloth I-73 compromise was Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. Thurmond gave Warner and Faircloth, members of his own party, a 15-minute tongue-lashing at Wednesday's subcommittee meeting. He was angry because he was not consulted about a proposal in Warner's legislation on the North Carolina-South Carolina border crossing for I-73.
North Carolina and South Carolina officials had also disagreed over where I-73 should cross their states' common border. South Carolina wanted the road to cross from Rockingham, N.C., to Bennettesville, S.C. North Carolina wanted the road to turn east from Rockingham to Calabash on the coast where it would enter South Carolina along the path of U.S. 17. Warner's bill calls for I-73 to follow North Carolina's preferred route.
If Thurmond stays angry and makes an issue in the Senate that the highway should follow the most logical route, he could cause problems for both Virginia's and North Carolina's preferred routes, Howard said.
Others, though, were pleased with the way things worked out.
"It's the spark we've been looking for," said George Lester, a Martinsville businessman. Lester is chairman of Job Link, a group of business people in Franklin and Henry counties and Rockingham County, N.C., who have lobbied to have U.S. 220 south of Roanoke replaced with an interstate-quality highway to improve safety and boost economic development.
by CNB