When Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was running for governor two years ago, he presented some attractive ideas for dealing with congestion along Interstate 81, the major transportation bottleneck in Western Virginia. In place of the competing, multi-billion dollar proposals advanced by private interests during the Warner administration, Kaine advocated less ambitious — and less expensive — solutions. First, add new truck-passing lanes where they were needed, and second, divert container traffic from trucks to rail.
As the public-private partnership proposals languish, it looks like state transportation policy is inching closer and closer to Kaine’s campaign ideas. In his story published today, “Relieving Interstate 81,” Peter Galuszka brings the I-81 saga up to date.
In an Environmental Impact Statement, VDOT has reached two important policy conclusions regarding I-81. One was to nix the proposed “truck only” lanes on the grounds that they created too much capacity for trucks and not enough for automobiles. The other was to finance improvements through truck tolls. Meanwhile, the only specific projects on the drawing boards call for spending $140 million to build truck-passing lanes near Christiansburg and Lexington. That sounds an awful lot like Kaine’s campaign plan.
Closing the loop on Kaine’s campaign proposal, Norfolk Southern now has proposed a $2 billion upgrade for its rail system with the idea of taking one million trucks per year off the nation’s highways. The railroad is asking Virginia, which would benefit from the diversion of traffic of I-81, to chip in $40 million.
It’s not clear how many trucks would be taken off Virginia highways, and there’s a good chance that organic growth in truck traffic would fill I-81 back up within a decade or less. But there’s no permanent solution in a growing economy. If $180 million — which would buy us the truck-passing lanes, plus the Norfolk Southern upgrades — can buy congestion relief for five to 10 years, it’s probably more cost effective than any other plan out there. But I’d like to see more authoritative numbers before drawing any solid conclusions.
