Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 19, 1995 TAG: 9510190069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"When someone brings the trough out, you all dive in," said Roth, president of the New River Environmental Coalition.
An audience of about 25 heard Roth's comments at the public meeting held by the transportation department Wednesday evening.
Most of the approximately 170 people who came to the Blacksburg Holiday Inn for a last chance to comment on the road design did not hear him. The forum at which Roth spoke was added to the meeting on Monday with little fanfare or advertisement. Roth was only one of four people who spoke at the forum, prompting some people to criticize the transportation department for the lack of notice.
Originally, the meeting was organized only to give residents a chance to make oral and written comments and ask questions about the project, a six-mile road that would link Blacksburg with Interstate 81 and be used to test new transportation technologies.
Instead of formal presentations, officials from the transportation department and the Roanoke engineering firm Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern, which designed the bridge spanning the Ellett Valley, were on hand to address concerns.
The forum was added only because of a request, said Laura Bullock, VDOT's community affairs coordinator.
In her experience, she said, more people will comment in a written or oral statement than in public.
Roth said more people would have come to the forum, held in a room beside the area where maps and diagrams of the smart road were displayed, if they had known about it.
"The whole point of this forum is to have others hear," said Roth.
The number of written and oral comments taken at the meeting were not available Wednesday night. Before the hearing, however, the transportation department had recorded 50 to 55 comments from the informational meeting held on Oct. 5 and from opinions later sent to its Christiansburg office.
About 35 of those comments were in favor of the project, said Dan Brugh, resident engineer in the transportation department's Christiansburg office. Between 15 and 20 of the comments were opposed to the road.
The comments, along with design plans for the smart road, will be given to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, which will decide whether to approve the project. If it does, detailed construction blueprints for the first two-mile stretch would be drawn, property purchasing would begin and construction bids would go out by late next year.
Approximately $27.1 million in state and federal funds have been secured for the first 1.7 miles of road, which Virginia Tech and private industries would use to test new highway technologies. No money has been secured to complete the project.
Supporters of the project say the road will speed travel between Virginia Tech and Roanoke and provide important technological advances in highway travel and opportunities for economic development and jobs.
"It takes money to make money," said Beverly T. Fitzpatrick Jr., director of the New Century Council, an organization working on a strategic plan for the Roanoke and New River valleys and the Alleghany Highlands
People opposed to the project say the road would be damaging to the environment, a waste of money and unnecessary.
The opposition was visible Wednesday night as about 13 people quietly stood with picket signs before diagrams of the 1,900 foot-bridge that would span Ellett Valley.
Several of the residents who attended the hearing were property owners affected by the project. Lynn Lipsey, who would lose 61 acres of her farm in Ellett Valley, said she is not concerned about her own property.
"I'm concerned about how much it's costing," she said.
Public comment can be taken up to 10 days after the public hearing. For more information, call the Virginia Department of Transportation office at 540-381-7200.
by CNB