Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020068
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The type of "intermodal" freight yard and inland port that the group has in mind embodies one of the major recommendations for regional transportation improvements unveiled recently by the New Century Council, a group of residents from the Roanoke and New River valleys and Alleghany Highlands who have developed a vision for the region's economic future.
A number of projects being pursued by the Planning District Commission came together to form the transportation center proposal, Vince Stover, a member of the commission staff, told the advisory group at its meeting Tuesday. Among those projects was conversion of part of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant to commercial uses.
The ammunition plant owns land south of the New River Valley airport and immediately southeast of Dublin. The track is separate from the arsenal's production plant on the New River at Radford. The land, which has a number of rail sidings, has been used for the storage of explosives made at the plant and was suggested by plant officials as a possible site for an inland port such as one already in operation at Front Royal in Northern Virginia, Stover said. An inland port could provide manufacturers a haven from custom duties on goods in international commerce.
The commission staff saw an opportunity to tie together the inland-port idea with a separate proposal for a major air-freight center and industrial park at the airport and the need to find a use for 10 large, mostly unused warehouse buildings in Dublin formerly occupied by Burlington Industries, Stover said.
All of those facilities are within 41/2 miles of each other, Stover said. A limited-access freight highway could be built to connect the rail sidings at the ammunition plant property with the airport property, he said.
Stover said he envisions the intermodal center as not just a place to transfer freight from one mode of transportation to another but also a place where businesses could have their freight consolidated with that of other shippers and loaded into containers for movement.
Many of the conditions that are needed to make a large intermodal freight facility linking the airport, the ammunition plant property and the former Burlington buildings together already exist, Stover said:
A spur into the plant property from a major Norfolk Southern east-west rail line that is one of the few in the nation capable of hauling double-stacked freight containers.
Proximity to Interstates 81 and 77 and proposed Interstate 73.
An abundant and skilled labor pool with access to two state universities and a community college. Workers on the ammunition plant property are already skilled transportation workers, Stover said.
Abundant and affordable land around the airport and elsewhere in the Dublin area.
Peter Huber, an assistant to Pulaski County's administrator, said the runway needs to be upgraded to handle larger jet cargo planes.
It will cost $1 million to do the paving, but the Federal Aviation Administration is reluctant to provide funding until air freight customers, such as the Volvo-GM plant in Dublin, commit to using the airport, Huber said.
Stover told the advisory group they need to get local officials and state legislators talking about the concept. He said the region may want to consider hiring a full-time marketing and planning director.
A Virginia Port Authority official will attend the group's next meeting, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 26, to talk about the concept.
by CNB