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Topic: I81 EXPANSION MEETINGS - HELP GET THE WORD OUT!!

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I81 EXPANSION MEETINGS - HELP GET THE WORD OUT!!

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First i would like to say that i am in agreement with the expansion on I81. AND if it werent for truckers, everyone would not have food and all the luxuries that you own today. Where do you think they come from? Truck drivers deliver 24/7. Another thing, my husband is a truck driver and i have been on the road with him and ill tell ya, its mainly the "4 wheelers" that cause the accidents. Their are times when a car is coming onto i81 and the truck cannot get over and the car keeps on coming and cuts the driver off. Its not easy keeping control of a semi especially when their are people out there driving so reckless. Now im not saying all truckers are perfect, yes their are some that give the industry a bad name. BUT dont bad-mouthed them all. And just remember who brought your bed that you sleep in, or the food that you bought at the store that you eat everyday. So I81 needs more lanes for all.

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Tim
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January 18th 2005 at Peter Muhlenberg Middle School in Woodstock Virginia

I81 EXPANSION MEETING

i81woodstock.jpg

What will 6 to 8 additional lanes on I-81 and 10 to 15 years of construction traffic on Route 11 and many other side roads mean to you, our Environment and Tourism?

WHAT IS AT STAKE AND WHAT CAN WE DO?

 STOP taxpayer subsidies for dedicated truck toll lanes on I-81.  Call Senator John Warner's Legislative Assistant, Ann Loomis.  Tell her to urge Sen. Warner to oppose Congressman Don Young's (R-Alaska) House earmark of $900 million for Halliburton's Corporation's STAR Solutions consortium. Halliburton wants to turn I-81 in Virginia into an 8-12 lane East Coast Truck Bypass. Halliburton is trying to privatize a free public asset (I-81) for private profit and then replicate this strategy all over the U.S. The real solution is to put all that freight on rails. Don Young's earmark will take transportation resources away from the rest of Virginia.

 
Contact: Senator John Warner:  http://warner.senate.gov/contact/contactme.htm
Telephone: (202) 224-2023
Fax: (202) 224-6295

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Rob
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I don't see how you could possibly defend the notion that 99% of truckers are safe drivers.  I drive a 30 min. commute twice a day along I81 and am seeing truckers driving wrecklessly and without any regard to the vehicles around them.  Last week there were 3 different instances where truckers pushed cars off the road and across the rumble strip.  Are they not paying attention or do they just assume that they have the right of way because they are carrying thousands of pounds of cargo?  THERE IS NO EXCUSE!  Since the recent deaths and accidents in the news have brought this to the attention of people who do not travel this roadway on a daily basis, I believe and hope that truckers will soon, and should, get hit with higher fines and saftey policies, which may not be enough, what is the fine for vehicular manslaughter?

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Bobbie
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There are a number of trucks drivers driving way to fast and to close to other trucks and cars. And the way I see it THAT is the problem.... I say fine any truck drive that tail gates and the killing will stop.

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Libbie
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The thing is... its not just the truck drivers... being a wife of a trucker, I know that most accidents are not caused by the truck, but rather by a car... most truckers are safe drivers, but yes you have those who are not... 99% of the time if a car and trucker are involved in an accident the trucker is going to get the ticket. Car drivers should be educated about how hard it is a truck with 80,000 pounds to just stop on a dime. It can't be done. Loads can shift without being known. I just hate to see it being put all on the truckers... and for one if they were to put tolls on the interstate... trucks would avoid it.. and end up driving through towns.

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Jeff
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Click here for Current Newspaper Articles on I-81.

Slate of Public Hearings Set for April: Get details.

I-81 Resolution Defeated at the General Assembly 2-8-06
Read more:

* Delegate Gilbert's Press Release
*
Harrisonburg Daily News Record article
* Roanoke Times article

I-81 Draft Environmental Impact Statement Released 11-29-05
See the Study and Read SVN Press Release


What You Can Do

Tell the Governor, VDOT and the Commonwealth Transportation Board you want Reasonable Solutions for I-81, Shenandoah Valley Network's six-point plan for addressing the real needs on I-81. See links below:

Governor Tim Kaine

VDOT I-81 Comment Page
Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board Members


Related Organizations

Virginia Conservation Network

Valley Conservation Council

Rail Solution

VDOT I-81 website

Resources & Information

Did You Know?
STAR Solution's current plans for the widening of I-81 include:


12 lanes through Christiansburg
12 lanes through Roanoke/Salem
10 lanes through Troutville
12 lanes through Staunton
10 lanes through Harrisonburg
10 lanes through Kernstown
10 lanes through Winchester

Fact Sheets
Summaries of the proposal's impact on health care and historic sites from Rail Solution.

Just released Fact Sheet, 3/24/06
VDOT I-81 Plans Dont Include Reasonable Solutions: No Measure of Impacts As Critical Decisions Are Made


Facts & Cost Don't Justify $13 billion proposal

VDOT Study Shows Truck lanes Most Expensive & Least Effective

SVN's Talking Points on I-81

Background
NPR's "All Things Considered" runs story in I-81

VDOT Commissioner Recommends STAR

Advisory Panel Recommends STAR

SVN joins with Virginia Truckers & Manufacturers opposing Truck lane proposal (PDF)

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Chuck
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The Shenandoah Valley Network is encouraging valley legislators to include six actions in the I-81 alternative plan:


1. Complete the spot improvements to I-81 that will improve safety and relieve congestion, many of which are identified in earlier VDOT studies.


2. Use the highway's median for improvements to preserve the footprint of the road and avoid further impacts on communities, farmland, battlefields and tourism.


3. Step up law enforcement to greatly improve safety.


4. Incorporate meaningful transit options in road improvement plans, including park & ride lots and carpool contact numbers. Coordinate with cities, local governments, major employers and universities.


5. Start planning for rail options to divert truck traffic and avoid air quality and congestion problems as road use grows.


6. Provide funding for land acquisition to mitigate impacts of I-81 on cultural resources, most notably Shenandoah Valley battlefields.


Let your local and state officials know that you believe there are reasonable solutions to I-81


Contact Your State Delegates & Senators






Ask your Delegate and State Senator to ensure VDOT adopts a Reasonable Solution for I-81 and that no money is allocated for truck lanes on Interstate 81.


Virginia State Senators in the Shenandoah Valley





Senator Emmett Hanger Jr.
Tel. 804-698-7524
Fax. 804-698-7651

Senator Mark D. Obenshain
Tel. 804-698-7526
Fax. 804-698-7651

Senator Russell Potts
Tel. 804-698-7527
Fax. 804-698-7651

Virginia State Delegates in the Shenandoah Valley





Delegate Christopher B. Saxman
Tel. 804-698-1020
Fax. 804-786-6310

Delegate R. Stephen Landes
Tel. 804-698-1025
Fax. 804-786-6310

Delegate Matthew J. Lohr
Tel. 804-698-1026
Fax. 804-786-6310

Delegate Beverly J. Sherwood
Tel. 804-698-1029
Fax. 804-786-6310

Delegate Clifford (Clay) Athey
Tel. 804-698-1018
Fax. 804-786-6310



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June
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MATCHING FUNDS Opportunity! A very generous donor will match up to $5,000 for contributions received by June 30, 2005. Click here to make your dollars really count now.


The Problem: There are too many trucks on I-81. Safety is a constant worry. The Virginia Dept. of Transportation is negotiating with a construction consortium, Star Solutions, led by the Halliburton Corp. The truckway consortium proposes a New Jersey Turnpike-style $13 billion plan to add four truck-only lanes to rural I-81. This proposal would double, triple, then quadruple the number of trucks and impose tolls on both cars and trucks. A mere rumble strip would "separate" truck lanes from "mixed use" lanes for cars and additional trucks. Such a super-sized highway would unfairly cause great damage to our local economy, air quality, public health, and historic landscape, but wouldn’t solve the safety problem. But, there is still time to stop this misguided approach.  


The RAIL Solution: We propose instead to shift the freight to higher-speed, modern rail lines--at less than 1/3 the cost and six times the growth potential for freight capacity than the STAR proposal. Additionally, we propose fixing the handful of spots on I-81 where most accidents occur by adding lanes or modernizing interchanges and improving enforcement and traffic management. 


Higher-speed intermodal rail systems already exist in the American West, Southwest, Mid-West and Canada. Plus, RAIL Solution opens the door for higher-speed passenger rail service in western and Southwest Virginia as well. 


For a quick look at the RAIL Solution concept see: The RAIL Solution Vision
 



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Tammy
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Rail improvements could reduce I-81 trucks by 500,000 a year

By the Associated Press - December 19 2003

RICHMOND, Va. -- With significant improvements to Virginia's rail system, 500,000 trucks a year could be taken off Interstate 81, a study released Thursday said.

The study, commissioned by the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation, suggested that $492 million in improvements could reduce tractor-trailer traffic on the highway by 5 percent by the year 2020.

I-81 has become a major East Coast commercial route through the western Virginia mountains, now handling more than twice the truck volume it was built to handle.

The findings also showed that a regional rail upgrade involving up to 14 Eastern states could reduce truck congestion on I-81 considerably more than Virginia-only improvements would.

If 12 of those states in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest increased capacity along their rails, the highway could see a 30 percent reduction in truck traffic by 2020. However, that would require an estimated $7.9 billion in funding, the study said.

The Rail and Public Transportation Department study examined intermodal rail shipping, in which trucks pick up and deliver shipments, but the containers are taken between cities on rails.

Sixty percent of the truck volume on I-81 is through-traffic _ haulers who originate from outside Virginia carrying cargo destined for another state. Without the cooperation of other states along the corridor, Virginia could only divert about 10 percent of I-81 truck traffic to rail, said Karen J. Rae, the department's executive director.

At that level, Rae said, "There would only be a few things we could do with our private-sector partners to grow that number."

The Virginia Department of Transportation is considering two competing private proposals for improving I-81. Both plans propose to charge tolls to car or truck drivers.

The trucking industry is willing to go along with some rail improvements as long as the upgrades don't use highway taxes, said Dale Bennett of the Virginia Trucking Association. Truckers pay a substantial percentage of that tax, he said.

"We don't feel like that tax money should be used to fund our competitors," said Bennett, the association's executive vice president. He had not seen the study.


 


Copyright © 2003, Daily Press


 



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Larry
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Shenandoah Valley Network
TheShenandoah Valley Network works with individuals and organizations throughout the Shenandoah Valley on transportation and development issues. The primary objective is to promote appropriate growth within the Valley while protecting our small town and rural character including our farming, historic, and tourist resources.

Our goal is to promote growth at a rate in which vital city and county infrastructures are not overly stressed, citizens do not face increasing taxes, and rural and historic areas are protected.





STAR SOLUTIONS


STAR Solutions, a team of Virginia and internationally prominent construction firms, wants to improve safety and reduce congestion along Interstate 81 by separating cars and trucks along all 325 miles that run through Virginia. The team has submitted a detailed proposal to Virginias Department of Transportation that, if approved, would bring relief to the I-81 corridor faster and more efficiently than the traditional road building methods. The proposal was submitted under Virginias Public Private Transportation Act, legislation passed in 1995 that allows private industry to propose innovative solutions to the Commonwealths transportation needs. Please click on the links to the left to learn more about this exciting proposal. website





VDOT Virginia Department of Transportaion


The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is responsible for building, maintaining and operating the state's roads, bridges and tunnels. And, through the Commonwealth Transportation Board, it also provides funding for airports, seaports, rail and public transportation. website





NPR's "All Things Considered" runs story in I-81


Highway Plans Include Major Toll Truck Route


Plans for a major expansion of Interstate 81 in Virginia are at the center of a debate over the nation's highway system. The plan's supporters want to create the first ever toll route for trucks. They say it would help trade by linking the United States with Mexico and Canada. Opponents, including the trucking industry, say the plan's costs are too high. NPR's Brian Naylor reports. Click Here



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Jeanne
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Amen to that.  Expansion would only make it worse.  Also we need to think in the long-term - 30 years in the futute.  Our air quality is already bad.  

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Susan
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The Rail Solution
Citizens working for high speed  inter-modal trains to carry freight and passengers as an alternative to massive widening of I-81.


The Problem: There are too many trucks on I-81. Accidents are frequent. Truck traffic has increased up to 200% in the last four years.

The Solution: Build more highway lanes? The Virginia Dept. of Transportation has chosen STAR Solutions, a Halliburton consortium, to design a plan to widen I-81 that may cost as much as $13 billion. Virginia is close to "the largest design-build horizontal project anybody has ever embarked on," according to VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet.

We propose instead to shift the freight to high-speed, modern rail lines, as has been done in Europe, for less than 1/3 of the STAR proposal. This solution opens the door for high speed passenger rail as well.


http://www.railsolution.org/ 



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Jeff
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Fixing Interstate 81

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Fixing Interstate 81
There’s broad support for widening I-81, but if the state uses tolls to fund the project, how will that affect the trucking industry and businesses along the corridor?


by Robert Burke
Virginia Business
October 2003


You don’t need to warn Don Zimmerman about big trucks. He faces them almost daily on the drive between his home in Vinton and his job at a steel manufacturing plant in Salem. As he wheels his Isuzu Rodeo along crowded Interstate 81 near Roanoke, lines of tractor-trailers roar past or creep up the hills of this mountainous region. “I definitely see it first hand,” says Zimmerman, a vice president at John Hancock Joist Co., of the endless flow of trucks. “It’s just amazing.”


Once safely at his desk, though, Zimmerman turns around and sends his nine-truck fleet out on the interstate. Hancock makes steel girders and joists, and I-81 is its pipeline to customers all over the country. “I know I’m part of the problem,” he says. “I just don’t know what the solution will be.”


The problem, of course, is a lot bigger than Zimmerman’s small fleet. I-81 is one of the busiest truck routes in the country, running from Tennessee through New York to the Canadian border. The 325 miles in Virginia carry anywhere from 25,000 to about 50,000 vehicles a day depending on the section of road, with the count topping 60,000 in some urbanized areas. And on this road, cars and trucks are pushed together with ferocity. Designed to handle 15 percent truck traffic, in some places trucks account for more than a third of vehicles, far higher than other interstates in Virginia. It’s also dangerous. In a four-month period last year, there were 694 accidents on I-81, 228 involving trucks, with 12 deaths and 352 injuries. There’s wide agreement today that I-81 badly needs to be improved, not only to save lives but for the long-term economic health of a huge swath of western Virginia.


But what to do and how to pay for it? Those questions are pitting region against region and industry against industry. At the crux is the idea of using tolls to pay the multibillion cost of widening the road. In September two private-sector groups gave detailed proposals for widening I-81 to VDOT and both depend on tolls. Truck-dependent companies up and down the Shenandoah Valley loathe the idea of tolls. On the flip side, though, are road-builders hurt by cutbacks in the state’s transportation budget — for them a toll-funded project of this size would be a bonanza. And, for state transportation planners, tolls might be the only way to get the work done. Virginia hasn’t taken any comprehensive action on transportation funding since raising the sales tax a half-cent in 1986. Today its 17.5-cent-a-gallon motor fuels tax rate is 41st in the nation. “If we want to realistically consider improvements more in the near term rather than a generation away on Interstate 81,” says VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet, “we’re going to have to look at some use of tolls.”


The two toll-based proposals come via the state’s 1995 Public-Private Transportation Act. Under the law, companies can bid on a project and make a profit if they finish on time and on budget. The more complex and costly proposal comes from a consortium of companies called Star Solutions. It proposes adding two new lanes in each direction just for trucks. Trucks and cars would be separated by rumble strips in narrower corridors and grassy medians elsewhere, especially north of Harrisonburg. The project would take about 12 years and cost $6.3 billion in 2003 dollars, which includes $1.6 billion in federal dollars and $98 million from VDOT. Mandatory separation of cars and trucks solves the safety issue, says James W. Atwell, a former VDOT assistant commissioner who is part of the Star team. “When you’ve got two lanes of traffic and those heavy trucks... nobody’s going to pass,” he says. “But when you separate the cars and trucks it provides for more free movement and free flow of traffic.”


The Star plan would levy tolls only on trucks, which would pay at least $68 for a trip through the state. In addition, the Star plan would build eight truck-only flyovers and make other interchange improvements.


The second bid is from Fluor Virginia, a group led by construction and engineering giant Fluor Corp. It has a lower estimated cost — $5.9 billion — and would take eight years to complete. It calls for tolls on both cars and trucks, and adds a third lane in each direction for cars only, along with 10 truck-climbing lanes on steep grades. Cars driving the entire stretch would pay $16 and heavy trucks would pay $55. Fluor Virginia’s plan doesn’t require federal or state funds. Both proposals call for improving rail lines of Norfolk Southern, which could take about 500,000 trucks a year off the interstate.


Though VDOT has both proposals in hand, the process of deciding exactly what to do will likely go on for several more years. It’s taken nearly two years just to get this far. Star first submitted an unsolicited proposal to VDOT in January 2002. Fluor gave its original concept to VDOT in January of this year, and both submitted detailed and modified proposals last month. VDOT is just beginning a federally required environmental impact study.


The cost of each plan changed substantially from earlier estimates. Fluor previously said its plan would cost about $1.8 billion, but that figure climbed when VDOT increased the work it wanted Fluor to include, such as the rebuilding of interchanges. The Star group cut $1.9 billion from its plan by reducing the number of truck-only flyovers and new interchanges, plus using rumble strips and grass medians instead of concrete barriers to separate cars and trucks. But Star’s $6.3 billion estimate is in 2003 dollars. The actual cost over the life of the project is higher, but Star didn’t make that figure public.


The 550-member Virginia Trucking Association favors the Fluor design but says the projected tolls of both plans are too high. “We think it will have an impact not only on trucking companies based out there but on the companies that depend on trucks,” says Dale Bennett, the group’s executive vice president. The group also chided Star Solutions, saying its decision to not reveal full details of its financial plan “serves no purpose other than to mislead the public and policymakers regarding the true costs.”


There is regional resentment as well. “Tolls on trucks will ... make local industry less competitive, force some smaller local firms out of business and ultimately cause our area major losses in revenue and employment,” Augusta County Chamber of Commerce Director Ben Carter said at a VDOT hearing last fall. The American Trucking Association told the General Assembly last year that tolls on I-81 would encourage truckers to take other roads. U.S. 29, for example, could see up to a 273 percent increase in trucks, claimed the association’s vice president, Richard Holcomb. Bennett says many valley businesses and residents “feel like it’s unfair to them. All these years they paid a pretty significant amount of tax that was used to pay for improvements in other parts of the state. And now there seems to be a shift in policy that says, ‘Well, western Virginia, you’re going to have to fix it yourself and bear the cost alone.’”


Large truck-dependent companies could take a major financial hit if tolls are adopted. The valley has many such businesses, such as the Coors Brewing plant in Elkton, which employs about 460 people, and MeadWestvaco Corp., a paper and chemical maker in Covington that employs 3,000 in Virginia. Both put thousands of trucks on the interstate every year and have warned state officials that tolls would give an edge to their competition. Zimmerman says his business is especially at risk. “We should all know by now the delicate situation the steel industry is in,” he says. “We can’t take another rate hike of any kind.”


Shucet says he sympathizes with the region’s complaint that they’re getting a bad deal. “But we have to deal with reality,” he says. “Something needs to be done.” He said that whatever plan evolves won’t be a death blow to trucking companies—though he doesn’t say if that means he’s skeptical of their dire warnings or expects some other plan to emerge. “We will not have served anyone… if we adopt an alternative that puts the trucking industry out of business in Virginia. We won’t do that.”


One thing that could tip the balance toward the Star proposal is the chance for Virginia to get federal money for a pilot study on the mandatory separation of trucks and cars, which is only in the Star plan. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, has backed such a study and shown a preference for I-81. In May, Young told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that a truck-only project in Virginia would be “close enough to where the rest of my Congressional friends can see it. And once they see it they will be mandated across this country.”


That funding would come through the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which was due to expire last month. Young reportedly has earmarked $800 million for a truck-only project. Atwell of the Star team says Young’s pilot program gives Virginia “an opportunity to be on the cutting edge. That may be the wave of the future for the movement of truck freight.” Those federal dollars, though, aren’t guaranteed, something Fluor representatives like to point out. “What happens if another Congress doesn’t want to reauthorize that money?” asks Bud Oakey, a spokesman for the Fluor group. “It would be nice to get that money, but I don’t see how you can count on it.”


The state’s road-building companies think it would be nice to get the I-81 project going no matter how it’s paid for. Last year a $2.8 billion cut from VDOT’s six-year construction plan meant the loss of 166 projects statewide. “There’s no doubt about it that our industry is hurting,” says Richard D. Daugherity III, executive vice president of the Virginia Road and Transportation Builders Association. “I think that we are running into such a financial bind that one way or another you’re going to have to turn to tolls.”


And it doesn’t matter which consortium gets chosen, or if neither wins out. If Shucet succeeds in pushing through a major widening of I-81, then many of the state’s road-building companies will get the work anyway because it’s cheaper to use local suppliers of raw materials and labor. “There are enough companies in Virginia who are interested in this job,” says Jack Lanford, chairman of Roanoke-based Adams Construction, a Star team member and the state’s largest asphalt producer. “I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble at all lining up people to do it.”


Virginia’s problem is lining up the money. According to VDOT the buying power of the state’s transportation taxes has dropped 40 percent since 1986. At the same time, construction costs have risen 48 percent and the number of vehicle miles traveled has climbed 79 percent. The state today is short on revenues and so saddled with debt that its six-year transportation plan calls for borrowing $407 million from road construction to pay for road maintenance. And debt payments, which used to consume just 1 percent of transportation revenues in 1986, now use 13 percent.


Virginia’s approach to paying for road construction has changed a lot, says Ray Pethtel, a leader of the Fluor team who served as interim VDOT commissioner before Shucet’s arrival. For decades the state took a pay-as-you go approach. Then in the 1980s and 1990s it began borrowing but always had new revenue to cover the debt payments, says Pethtel. Under former governor Jim Gilmore, it began depending more on debt backed by future federal payments. “For a particular project that’s okay,” Pethtel says. “But when you’re trying to fund a whole program ... you’ve got to have new revenue.”


There is little chance that the current legislature would agree to any tax increase for transportation spending. In the most recent General Assembly session, proposals to raise money for road-building failed. Two bills sponsored by Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, to add a 4.5 percent sales tax to the price of gasoline and to index the motor fuels tax to inflation both died in the Senate Finance Committee. A third bill, sponsored by Del. John A. Rollison III, R-Woodbridge, to dedicate a third of the annual insurance license tax to leverage bonds for road construction passed the House but died in the finance committee as well.


Rollison is a case study on the hazards of proposing transportation tax increases. He helped get two regional transportation referendums on the ballot last fall only to see them trounced by voters. Then in June, Rollison — an 18-year veteran and chairman of the House Transportation Committee — was beaten in a GOP primary by a 27-year-old conservative anti-tax challenger. That helped silence any talk of a fuel tax increase. “If I was looking at a gas tax increase, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that this year,” says Daugherity, a self-described conservative Republican. “I don’t think it’ll ever get through the conservative House.”


Instead, tolls are emerging as a potential funding source for projects such as a part of the long-planned third crossing in Hampton Roads and a 14-mile section of high-occupancy, car-only toll lanes along the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia. VDOT received an unsolicited PPTA proposal from Fluor Daniel for the latter project this summer.
The I-81 project might break ground for more toll-funded roads, but its actual groundbreaking is still a long way off. Local governments have until early November to comment on the Star and Fluor plans, then there is a lengthy environmental review, negotiations with the Federal Highway Administration, public comment and likely challenges over the project’s environmental impact. Plus, pro-rail groups are pushing for improving rail infrastructure rather than laying new asphalt through some of Virginia’s most scenic areas. There’s no telling what might emerge. “As we work through that process and as we work through the environmental process, new options may take shape,” Shucet says.


Zimmerman, meanwhile, has learned to cope with his commute. The hard part is getting up to speed on the entrance ramps, he says. “It was no problem 25 years ago. You could almost get on with your eyes closed due to the low volume. But now you’d better be ready to go,” he says. “Once you’re on, it’s just a matter of keeping up with everyone else.” That’s true for anyone with a stake in what happens to I-81: Keep up, or get run over.




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James
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I81 EXPANSION MEETINGS - HELP GET THE WORD OUT!!

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August 19, 2002

The Honorable Mark R. Warner
Governor of Virginia
State Capitol
Richmond, VA 23210

Dear Governor Warner:

I was pleased to learn that you will soon appoint a special task force to focus on the problem of unsafe trucks in the Commonwealth. I strongly encourage you to challenge the task force to develop an aggressive plan that will remove dangerous trucks from Virginias highways.

Consideration should be given to:

* Dramatically increasing the fines and criminal penalties associated with truck safety violations for the operating companies.

* Requiring that a certain percentage of the revenue collected from fines be spent on additional truck safety enforcement and monitoring equipment, such as mobile scales and handheld portable thermal imagers for both the state police and local law enforcement agencies.

* Providing additional assistance to localities throughout the Commonwealth which are interested in establishing inspection programs.

* Establishing a monitoring system that will allow the state and jurisdictions to share information on trucks such as when a vehicle was last inspected and what citations it may have received.

* Increasing the number of state troopers assigned to enforcing and improving truck safety, particularly on I-95, I-81, I-64 and the Capital Beltway.

* Examining what the state can do to assist responsible truck drivers, including providing more places where drivers can pull safely off the highways and rest and ending the practice of letting drivers only park at rest areas for three hours.

* Examining what other states are doing to improve truck safety.

* Developing a strategy to deal with trucks from Mexico that will soon be traveling on Virginias highways.

* Monitoring the cargo of trucks involved in accidents, particularly out of state trucks. According to Virginia Transportation Secretary Whitt Clement, this information is not presently recorded.

As you are aware, I participated in a truck safety inspection on Route 28 with the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office Traffic Safety Unit on August 5. This was the fifth such inspection in which I have participated. Each one has been an eye opener.

Out of the 14 trucks inspected that day, nine failed and were immediately taken out of service. Some of these trucks had steering problems, several had bad brakes and one was being driven with two flat tires. The vehicles taken out of service ranged from tractor trailers to garbage trucks. The trucks that failed inspection were either repaired on site or towed to another location. They are prohibited from driving from the inspection site until they are repaired.

Enclosed are several photos and a videotape from the August 5 inspection. I appreciated the fact that DMV Commissioner Ab Quillan, his deputy, Lynwood Butner, and VDOT Deputy Secretary Pierce Homer all were in attendance. Joe Clapp, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, also was on hand for the inspection. I strongly encourage you to take part in an inspection so you can see firsthand the dangers that our families, friends and neighbors face statewide on a daily basis as they drive along our highways.

According to statistics provided to me by your administration, 1,382 truck-related accidents occurred in Virginia from 1990 to 2001. These accidents caused 1,593 fatalities, an average of 133 deaths per year. Additionally, from 1995 to 2001, 39 percent of the trucks inspected in Virginia were ticketed for violations such as driving with malfunctioning brakes, bad tires, illegal licenses, weight violations and criminal arrests. To think that many of the heavy trucks on our roads are driving illegally is a alarming fact that cannot be ignored. I am fearful that the problem could only get worse when trucks from Mexico begin traveling freely across the nation later this year.

Making our highways safer has always been one of my top priorities. Among other things, I pushed for a number of safety-related improvements to the George Washington Parkway and sponsored the national .08 blood alcohol limit to help reduce drunk driving. Because of my growing concern about the rising number of truck-related accidents on our nations highways, as chairman of the House transportation appropriations subcommittee I pushed for the creation of the new federal agency to oversee the trucking industry.

Since the creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in 2001, Congress has provided more than $365 million in grant money to states for truck inspections and other safety activities. An additional $190 million is expected to be appropriated in FY 2003.

You should be aware that Congress specifically provided funds through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act in 2001 to the Commonwealth for infrared brake inspection equipment. This equipment was used at the August 5 truck inspection. It quickly determines if a truck has malfunctioning or inoperable breaks.

Most truck drivers and trucking companies are honest, law abiding and hardworking people. The responsible truck drivers are as anxious as the rest of us to get the bad apples in the trucking business off our roads. I have been told that some drivers have been known to seek out the truck inspection sites in order to force their employer to address and correct a safety defect. Clearly, not all accidents involving trucks are the fault of the truck driver, but ensuring that the trucks traveling up and down our highways and through our neighborhoods are safe will certainly result in fewer accidents and save lives. Senior citizens traveling on I-81 shouldnt have to worry if the tractor trailer behind them has good brakes and mothers shouldnt have to wonder about the condition of the tires on the trash truck that comes every week.

The critical nature of this problem requires that a more concerted effort be made to enforce commercial motor vehicle laws. The Commonwealth already has a lot of good people working on this issue the Virginia State Police has performed an average of 40,000 inspections annually since 1995 but few localities perform their own inspections. While safety is clearly the overriding concern, the resulting accidents from poorly maintained trucks adds to the problem of congestion, particularly in northern Virginia.

Again, I applaud your decision to establish a truck safety task force. It is certainly in the best interest of the hundreds of thousands of Virginians who drive on our roads every day.

Best wishes.

Sincerely,

Frank R. Wolf
Member of Congress

Shenandoah Valley by ShenandoahsBest.com - Our goal is to provide a platform that allows small businesses, artists, web designers and web promoters in the Shenandoah Valley to advertise directly to consumers at little to no cost.



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Joe
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RE: I81 EXPANSION MEETING January 18th Woodstock V

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If everyone went the same speed there would be much fewer accidents. Sometimes I notice a situation on i85 where everyone is going fast but one person is driving at a much slower speed. This creates a situation where there is a lot of passing and switching of lanes and many more opportunities for accidents. My solution is to have mandatory cruise control which is automatically remotely set by satellite, depending on what road you are on and road conditions. With my proposal all roads could safely carry a much higher amount of traffic and at higher speeds.

High speed traffic is dangerous, yet it is made much more dangerous when one or two people are going slower than the other traffic.

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John
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RE: I81 EXPANSION MEETING January 18th Woodstock VA

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Even with expansion, if they do not come up with a way people can report and fine the dangerous trucks and cars is it all worth it. It they right now were to enforced a law that a truck must keep one football field behind another truck or get a $1000.00 fine would be a BIG help. The fine will pay for the enforcement. If they wanted to raise more money they can fine the truck drives for dumping trash and bottles of urine on the sides of the roads $2,000.00 give $1000.00 to the people that wait to catch these individuals.

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Sally
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Something needs to be done.  The road is very dangerous.  I am for expansion, but the rail solution would be worth looking into.  At all costs, just don't do nothing!  Expansion or rail, something!!!  We who live here have to drive on this highway.  Safety is paramount! 

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Mike
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The Problem: There are too many trucks on I-81. Accidents are frequent. Truck traffic has increased up to 200% in the last four years.

The Solution: Build more highway lanes? The Virginia Dept. of Transportation has chosen STAR Solutions, a Halliburton consortium, to design a plan to widen I-81 that may cost as much as $13 billion. Virginia is close to "the largest design-build horizontal project anybody has ever embarked on," according to VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet.

We propose instead to shift the freight to high-speed, modern rail lines, as has been done in Europe, for less than 1/3 of the STAR proposal. This solution opens the door for high speed passenger rail as well.


More info on the site: http://www.railsolution.org/



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J. Berghaus
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It is time we stop talking and start doing.  Ten years is too long!

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tom
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With a carefully drawn out plan, which of course can be simplified, the problems facing Shenandoah County and the concerns with the I-81 expansion can be addressed and implemented.
I do not support the expansion, mainly because I believe that it will permanently alter our lives and endanger travelers on the I-81 corridor. Certainly the safety factor is paramount and an expansion clearly is NOT the answer. That will be just another excuse to raise taxes in the county that none of us in the working sector can afford.

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Pam
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It is a dangerous road to drive with all the truck traffic. Somebody was just telling me today that they never drive it anymore because of that. We need to find a solution, whether it is the addition of "truck-free lanes" or something else.

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Helen
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The Trucks should not be allowed in the left lane and should be required NOT to tail gate.

We need to have some kind way to ID the trucks that are dangerous. And demand the State Police to take action. The same goes for the bad cars as well.



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Kate
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I believe there is a need for a reporting system for the bad truck driver and cars on the road. Trucks are trying to run cars off the road and the police do nothing when you call them on your cell phone....

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James
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Numbers Show I-81 State's Most Dangerous Road

by Ed Smith

Death is not an infrequent visitor to Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County.


Six people have been killed on this stretch of interstate highway so far this year. Since 1990, 39 people have lost their lives along the 32 miles of four-lane hilly highway that cuts a swath through our county.


In a significant number of these fatalities — 19, or nearly half of the total — at least one of the vehicles involved was a tractor-trailer. Five of the six fatalities this year have involved tractor-trailers.


Between 1990 and 2001, there were 2,033 accidents on Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County. Tractor-trailers played a role in 481 of these accidents, or 24 percent.


With tractor-trailers now accounting for up to 40 percent of the traffic on I-81 in Rockbridge County — more than double what it was 30 years ago — is this section of I-81, statistically speaking, a more dangerous road to travel than other parts of the interstate highway system in Virginia?


Interstate 81, as a whole, does indeed appear to be more dangerous than the state's other interstate highways. As for the specific section in Rockbridge County, some years are decidedly worse than others.


For instance, over 15 percent of all the deaths on I-81 in Virginia in 1999 — five of 32 — came in Rockbridge County. While the number of I-81 deaths stood at 29 in 2000, there were actually no I-81 fatalities in Rockbridge County that year.


Over half of the fatalities thus far this year on what's come to be considered among the most deadly sections of I-81 — the portion between Wythe and Rockbridge counties — occurred on our end of this stretch, in Rockbridge County.


In the past two years I-81 has had a much higher death rate than its two most comparable counterparts in the state, Interstates 95 and 64.


The 29 people killed on I-81 in 2000 translates to a rate of .65 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles driven. The numbers that year for I-95 and I-64 were, respectively, 24 and 21 fatalities, for death rates of .44 and .47. In 1999, there were 32 fatalities on I-81 for a death rate of .72. In 1999 on I-95 and I-64, there were 20 and 17 fatalities for death rates of .36 and .37.


The state's only interstate that had a higher death rate than I-81 both of these years was Interstate 77, but this highway covers a much shorter distance with far fewer miles traveled. Interstate 66 had a higher death rate in one of those years, but this road also covers a much shorter distance and represents many fewer miles traveled. Smaller numbers are more likely to fluctuate from year to year and therefore are not as significant from a statistical point of view.


The death rate on I-81 easily eclipses that of I-95, despite the fact that I-95 has a lot more traffic. Over 15 million daily vehicle miles are recorded along the 178-mile distance of I-95, compared to 12 million-plus daily vehicle miles on all of I-81 in Virginia, which covers 325 miles. The daily vehicle counts on I-81 vary, depending upon what part of the state you're in, from 29,000 to 66,000. The daily vehicle counts on I-95 range from as little as 21,000 in rural southside to as much as 236,000 in urban Northern Virginia.


The traffic volume on I-81 in Rockbridge County continues to climb steadily upward, with tractor-trailers accounting for much of the increase. In 1997, the daily vehicle count was between 32,000 and 34,000. Tractor-trailers accounted for between 19 and 33 percent of the traffic that year. By 2001, the daily vehicle count had risen to as high as 40,000, with tractor-trailers making up 36 to 39 percent of the total.


When I-81 in Rockbridge County was built in the 1960s, tractor-trailer traffic accounted for just 15 percent of the total volume — a far cry from what it does today. It's not surprising that the increase in tractor-trailer traffic has been matched by a corresponding rise in the number of fatal crashes in which these huge vehicles are involved.


As traffic has become more congested, and as an increase in conflicts between vehicles of such disproportionate size has ensued, deadly collisions seem to be the inevitable result.

http://www.thenews-gazette.com/I-81/highway03.asp



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