Commonwealth Chronicle

Huffman believes the need is particularly acute on steep inclines, where the heavy trucks have to slow down significantly, causing traffic to back up.

Truck driver Thomas Venable agrees. When he carries a full load of milk uphill on I-81, Venable often has to keep his flashers on because his truck cannot go faster than 55 mph. A third lane, truckers believe, would help ease the congestion, particularly in hilly regions such as I-81 trouble spot Fancy Hill in Rockbridge County.

A truck climbing lane meant to improve the merging of trucks on an uphill grade has already been built near Christiansburg. Another is being built in Rockbridge County in the Fairfield area. That location has one of the longest and steepest uphill grades on I-81.

VDOT projects are financed through the Six-Year Improvement Program. The program assigns money for transportation projects proposed for construction, development or study in the next six budget years. The program is updated annually.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board, a 17-member body appointed by the governor, allocates the highway funding to VDOT for specific projects. VDOT’s normal revenue stream is made up mainly of sales taxes or taxes on fuel. Federal money is not a steady source for the state transportation department.

The recent economic downturn dealt a blow to VDOT’s revenue stream, leaving the future of big-scale expansion plans up in the air, contingent upon detailed environmental studies and budget concerns.

The future of I-81

It has been more than a year since VDOT rejected a proposal for the expansion of I-81 launched in 2002 by the Star Solutions consortium, led by a Halliburton subsidiary. That plan stipulated the addition of four truck-only lanes and some general-use lanes at a cost of up to $13 billion. Star’s project also called for truckers to pay tolls in their special lanes.

An early STAR Solutions visualization of truck-only lanes. Later mock-ups showed continuous four-lane roadways with buffered rumble strip separation of truck from car lanes. (Photo: PETER SAMUEL/TOLLROADSnews)

But VDOT decided that, although the idea was creative, when measured against expected future traffic volumes building separate truck-only lanes would provide too many lanes for trucks and not enough for cars in most locations.

Studies conducted for the department show that by 2035 nontruck traffic in many urban areas will exceed the capacity of the existing I-81.

Fred Altizer, VDOT’s Interstate 81 program coordinator, believes that the addition, where needed, of no more than one or two general-purpose lanes in each direction is the better solution.
“Even if you took 100 percent of the trucks off of 81, it’s going to have to be widened,” Altizer said.

But expansion cannot unclog the Virginia corridor all on its own, and other improvements – both short- and long-term – are being analyzed by VDOT.

“There’s no silver bullet to fixing congestion,” the research council’s Fontaine said. “It’s really a whole suite of solutions that people have to look at.”

Those solutions include long-term plans that look at a combination of rail and truck transportation. To identify short-term rail improvements and analyze potential long-term diversion of truck traffic to rail, VDOT worked closely with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation and privately-owned Norfolk Southern Railway, which owns about 60 percent of the state’s track.

While improvements to tracks connecting Manassas to Front Royal are already underway, so far money hasn’t been budgeted for VDOT to engage in any other intermodal projects. Altizer said that rail projects should be regarded as complements to freeway improvements, since moving freight to rail won’t solve congestion on its own.

“It’s going to take capacity in our highways. It’s going to take capacity in our railways,” Altizer said. “I think both of those are essential.”

One advocacy group, however, argues that it has a plan to end all traffic problems on I-81. RAIL Solution, spearheaded by Emory, Va. resident Rees Shearer, is advancing its proposal for a pilot program parallel with the interstate system, but on the railroad: a steel interstate.

“This would be one of those few silver bullets out there that could make a difference in terms of not only improving quality of life and air quality and so forth, but actually improving productivity at a cheaper price than it would be to expand the highway,” Shearer said.

The plan was first put forward as a reaction to the Star consortium proposal, which threatened the beauty and equilibrium of the Valley and the health of its inhabitants, Shearer said. RAIL Solution estimates the cost of its five-state, 600-mile project at around $9 billion.

That’s $4 billion cheaper than Star’s Virginia-only widening proposal. The envisioned steel interstate would be dual tracked, free from grade crossings, equipped with computerized signaling, and would move freight much faster than the existing infrastructure. The steel interstate would essentially follow the roadway of I-81.

“Those who oppose this seem to be stuck in the idea of rail service as it currently is. Well, that’s our grandparents’ railroad,” Shearer said. “The infrastructure in the Shenandoah Valley was put in place in the 1870s. So, of course it doesn’t compete with a 1960s-era highway.”

Emory, the place Shearer has been calling home for more than 40 years, is a sleepy village that nestles between the deep-green Appalachians. If it weren’t for its location, half a mile off I-81, and the railroad first built in 1856, Emory would probably not even make it onto most maps.

RAIL Solution emerged primarily out of Shearer’s horror at Star’s proposal in 2002 for an eight-lane project tearing through the idyllic Virginia countryside. Back in those days Shearer still worked as a counselor in an elementary school, where he saw many children whose asthma was aggravated by the area’s poor air quality. He fears widening the interstate would bring in more traffic and subsequently more air pollution.

“It was the public health issue that hit me hardest,” Shearer said.

According to RAIL Solution, adding freight-carrying capacity on rail requires a much smaller footprint on the land than interstate construction. The steel interstate could be built mostly on existing tracks, and some grading and bridge structures are already in place. The need for land to expand the existing railway is also modest compared to adding more lanes to the interstate, Shearer believes.

The initial ragtag effort put in by a handful of committed early believers has since garnered the support of about 1,300 people in 37 cities, counties, organizations and localities, including Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County. Supporters include citizens from localities along I-81, volunteers for a number of transportation and environmental advocacy groups, and local governments.

A suggested partnership with Norfolk Southern is uncertain, but Shearer believes that the railroad company would be more interested in collaboration if federal money for the project became available. (to be continued)

This story was originally published here.

Darrell Lewis is a self-professed man of faith, but he doesn’t believe in salvation when it comes to traffic congestion on Interstate 81. Lewis, a Luray, Va. resident, has been a truck driver for 21 years, but hauling freight has never seemed more of a struggle than now.

Darrell Lewis - Truck driver, owner-operator

“It ain’t no fun anymore, you know?,” Lewis said. “I mean, it is. I do it because I like trucking, but it’s different than what it used to be.”

To him, driving on I-81 is a nightmare. His load, usually hazardous materials such as paint and chlorine, exacerbates the risk and stress that bear down on Lewis every time he gets behind the wheel.

He used to haul gasoline, but he switched to hauling chemicals after spilling 5,000 gallons of gas in a crash on Interstate 66 a few years back. Lewis said he became a devout Christian after he managed to escape his wrecked truck cab in one piece.

Now, his biggest fear is a dangerous combination of aggressive drivers, speeding and the clogged interstate.

Lewis has heard of the proposed solutions to relieve the congestion on I-81, but he remains skeptical that any of these costly projects, such as the expansion of the interstate or a rail corridor to carry truck traffic, can solve anything.

“There is no solution,” Lewis said. “To me it ain’t.”

He doesn’t have much to say about advocacy group RAIL Solution’s proposal to move freight to rail. While it might work for some long-haul transports, Lewis doesn’t think it would ever be implemented for hauling perishable goods. He believes the quality of those products can be compromised, because trains take too long to deliver them.

As for widening the interstate and adding a lane or two in each direction, Lewis can see pros and cons.

“We all know that if we widen the highway and things like that, that would probably help. But it would take 20 years to do that… and by then you’d probably need five lanes instead of four,” he said.

Searching for solutions

Lewis is not alone in seeing congestion as the biggest problem on I-81. State transportation officials, advocacy groups and both truck and car drivers recognize the need for improvement of traffic flow on the freeway.

Adding lanes to I-81 or moving more freight to rail to reduce commercial traffic are the proposals most commonly touted and reviewed by the Virginia Department of Transportation. Costs for these big proposals run in the billions, and VDOT is already strapped for cash, struggling with a $2.6 billion deficit.

But the availability of economic stimulus money for infrastructure projects, the upcoming federal transportation act reauthorization, and the new administration in Washington create a window of opportunity for the funding of I-81 development projects.

VDOT says most of the projects it has submitted for I-81 involve requests for stimulus money to pave the road and improve bridges. But RAIL Solution is hoping for its own slice of the stimulus package, to fund its proposal for a high-speed railway parallel to I-81.

How we got here

Most of I-81 was built between the late 1950s and the early 1970s as a four-lane freeway meant to relieve traffic congestion on other state roads. But since I-81 was opened, employment in all industry sectors in the corridor expanded, according to VDOT. Services employment nearly tripled and retail employment along the corridor doubled.

The economic growth led to a sharp increase in the volume of traffic on I-81, particularly truck traffic. The number of vehicles transiting Rockbridge County nearly doubled from 1985 to 1995. What was a state-of-the-art expressway in the 1960s suddenly became clogged and perilous. Now the Virginia corridor of I-81 has almost reached its capacity, with an average of 20,000 trucks traveling on the road every day.

Planners say a four-lane highway such as I-81 is at capacity when it’s handling 4,800 passenger vehicles per hour in each direction in rural areas and 4,600 in urban areas. But those figures don’t take into account the impact of big rig traffic, which accounts for 40 percent of the volume on some stretches of I-81.

According to a 2007 VDOT study, a daily average of 24,000 vehicles, including tractor-trailers, goes through the stretch between the Roanoke and Montgomery county lines in each direction, or 48,000 total. Trucks account for about 25 percent of daily traffic in that area.

At peak times, more than 3,050 vehicles per hour, including big trucks, pass in each direction, pushing the capacity limits.

Alan Caviness, safety director of the Virginia-based trucking company Houff Transfer, blames the congestion on planning when the interstate was first designed.

“I don’t think anyone had a clue how much truck traffic there would be on 81,” he said.

Debates on improving I-81 have been going on for at least a decade. But everyone agrees that, with traffic expected to double in 20 years, something needs to be done to improve the flow along the Virginia corridor.

According to data provided by the Virginia Transportation Research Council, between 1985 and 2005 traffic in the United States went up 80 percent. For that same interval, however, the number of lane miles has increased by a mere 5 percent. Adding a lane or two in each direction seems a basic solution, but one that comes with an expiration date and a big price tag.  Eeventually, traffic will increase to fill the additional lanes, so road widening is only a temporary solution.

A corridor study conducted by VDOT shows that adding one lane in each direction for all 325 miles of I-81 in Virginia and increasing shoulder widths would cost about $5.1 billion in 2005 dollars and $7.5 billion in 2015 dollars. Adding two lanes would cost $11.4 billion in 2015 dollars.

“We’re not going to build our way out of congestion,” said Mike Fontaine, senior research scientist at the state research council.  “I mean, we’ve tried to build our way out of congestion for 40 years and it hasn’t really been successful.”

But to truck drivers and transportation authorities alike, there is little doubt that expansion is needed in particularly busy hubs such as the Roanoke and Winchester areas. Truck driver Clyde Huffman has been hauling heavy loads up and down the Virginia corridor of I-81 since 1976. To him, the volume of traffic is the biggest problem on the interstate right now.

“[Traffic]’s picked up. It’s gotten to the point where it needs three lanes in both directions,” Huffman said. (to be continued)

Pierce Owings, left, spent most of his life following Cullum everywhere: to high school and then to college at Washington and Lee University, where he joined the same fraternity as Cullum, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. (Photo: STEVE OWINGS)

This story was originally published here.

Pierce Owings lost his big brother and best friend on the same night. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2002, Cullum Owings died when a speeding tractor trailer rammed into his car on Interstate 81 a few miles from their destination.

Pierce, a passenger in the car, escaped from the accident virtually unscathed. He would be the only one to make it back to Washington and Lee University.

“It hit us like a freight train,” said Pierce, who after the crash looked over to find Cullum hunched beside him. At age 19, as he sat in the back of an ambulance on Interstate 81 near Lexington, Pierce had to call his parents and tell them their son, his brother, was gone.

“He was my best friend. I admired him,” said Pierce, now 25. “We were very close.”

Cullum Owings became another casualty on the list of 5,000 Americans who die every year in tractor-trailer-related crashes.

“That’s the equivalent of two airline crashes a month with everyone on board dying,” said Steve Owings, Pierce and Cullum’s father.

The trucker who caused the Owings’ crash was indicted on a charge of reckless driving, a criminal misdemeanor. He spent a month in jail, paid a $1500 fine and gave up his license for a year.

The steep grades and rocky bottoms of the truck-dense I-81 make it the deadliest of Virgnina’s five interstates, said Mike Fontaine, senior research scientist at the Virginia Transportation Research Council.

Last year, 22 of the almost 3,000 national fatal crashes involving big trucks happened on the Virginia corridor of I-81. Of the 65 fatal crashes on the corridor in the years 2005-2007, 25 of them involved at least one truck. That’s almost 40 percent of the fatal crashes during those three years.

On Interstate 95, which runs north-south through busy eastern Virginia, only 34 percent of fatal crashes involve at least one truck. And a mere 11 percent of Interstate 64’s fatal crashes involve a tractor trailer.

Fontaine, who provided those crash statistics, said that I-81 has the highest percentage of truck traffic in the Commonwealth. That’s a growing problem for an aging, four-lane interstate.

I-81 was built to accommodate 15 percent truck traffic during its 1960s heyday. Today, tractor-trailers are up to 40 percent of traffic. And passenger car congestion is growing fast, too, Fontaine said.

Traffic volume on most segments has more than tripled since 1975, according to Federal Highway Administration statistics. The steady traffic volume increase is due largely to the long-term economic expansion in industries and localities along the corridor.

And the deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980, which made it easier for new truck companies to get started and truckers to get licensed, quadrupled the number of trucks on the road.

The multiplying numbers of cars and trucks traveling I-81 will inevitably increase the frequency and severity of crashes, said Fontaine.

“Congestion and crashes tend to be highly correlated with one another,” he said.

Worse, crashes that do occur on the mountainous interstate are notorious for their severity.
Since Cullum Owings’ death the Virginia Department of Transportation has spent $62.5 million in Rockbridge County alone on widening bridges and adding truck lanes.

But long-term solutions will be costly – estimates range up to $13 billion and could take more than a decade. The federal six-year spending plan for interstate highways is up for renewal this year, but big-ticket items such as adding more lanes to I-81 or providing the money necessary to move more freight to the railroad are not likely to be a part of the bill in a down economy.

And the almost $700 million in stimulus money VDOT has received can be used only for “shovel-ready” projects – projects that do not need extensive planning and can be implemented immediately.

Worse, budget-cutting measures planned in Virginia could mean less overnight parking for weary truckers looking to get off the road for some sleep. (to be continued)