Price's Fork Road widening

Just a few months ago Blacksburg residents were told that a traffic study of Price's Fork Road showed it had ample capacity to handle not only the 3000 cars from the new stadium, but also all the anticipated growth from farther out Price's Fork Road.

Now we are being told a major new four lane highway through existing neighborhoods is required, or that Price's Fork must be widened to six lanes.

How can two studies produce such different results?

Unfortunately, this seems to be classic example of three different governments looking at different parts of the elephant and coming up with very different conclusions.

VDOT has proposed building an entirely new, limited access highway from the Southgate Drive area of the 460 bypass that would terminate on Price's Fork just past the Middle School. The options they proposed were baffling. Several options involved the wholesale destruction of several well-established Blacksburg neighborhoods (Hethwood and Stroubles Mill) as well as the loss of hundreds of acres of open space (mostly Tech farmland) and building across Stroubles Creek-a wetlands area. Another option involved building a road that parallels Merrimac Road, which would avoid Blacksburg neighborhoods but would involve the taking of dozens if not hundreds of properties in the Merrimac area of the county.

At best, this road would shorten a commute to Price's Fork by about a mile or so, and would likely cost 50 to 60 million dollars. No one in Blacksburg seemed to be aware that VDOT was looking at this, and the county was silent, although the county would benefit because the road would greatly accelerate growth on the south side of Blacksburg, leading to increased tax revenue.

During the great stadium debate, the Town and the county were quite adamant that Price's Fork, as is, had ample capacity to handle increased stadium traffic AND all increased growth farther out on Price's Fork Road, which includes more than 800 new homes already approved for construction.

Shortly after the stadium was approved for the Price's Fork location, VDOT mysteriously announces that Price's Fork Road is apparently so badly overloaded that an entirely new HIGHWAY is needed. How can full time, professional planners from three different levels of government come to such vastly different conclusions? And how and why was VDOT able to propose wholesale destruction of well-established Blacksburg neighborhoods without Town planners even being aware of VDOT plans? Who is protecting Blacksburg and its neighborhoods?