roanoke.com Real Politics / Preston Bryant

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

A week or so ago, there was a pretty influential guy here in Virginia speaking to a bunch of transportation enthusiasts about Interstate 81, the north-south artery that runs along Virginia’s western spine. And to listen to him, you’d think his blood ran back to the Englishmen or Scots or German Protestants or Mennonites or Moravians who settled the Shenandoah Valley before the Revolutionary War.

But this fellow has no ancestral connection to Virginia at all. He’s Alaska’s sole congressman, Don Young.

Young, himself a transportation enthusiast, was in Williamsburg to discuss his ideas for improving the surface transportation system in the United States. And he’s in a position to do it. Young, you see, is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Central to his road-improvement ideas is creating better, easier movement of truck traffic, which carries so much of our nation’s goods from domestic manufacturers or seaports to other manufacturers, distribution centers and retail outlets. Some seven years ago, Young said, he came up with the idea to give trucks their own lanes on some of our nation’s busiest -- and most dangerous -- interstates.

This is where Young’s interest in I-81 comes into play. For it’s this 325-mile stretch of interstate that he’s targeted to demonstrate how beneficial it’d be to separate -- physically separate -- trucks from cars.

And to put his (actually the taxpayer’s) money where his mouth is, Young has intimated he’ll send to Virginia some $1.6 billion for the project. For a state that sends more gas tax revenue to Washington, D.C., than it gets back from the feds to help build roads, Young’s offer is significant.

But is it a done deal? No. Far from it. If Virginia doesn’t show some positive signs in the near future that it intends to move to separate trucks from cars on I-81, Young may well turn to another state salivating for the money.

Texas and California both have interstate-improvements projects that could meet Young’s criteria for the federal earmark of funds. In Texas, there’s the Trans Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile collection of proposed or existing interstates (I-35, I-37, I-69, and I-45) that’s to be built or improved. There’ll be no mixing of trucks and cars. The lumbering semis will get two lanes for themselves in each direction of the interstates. There also will be rail improvements to move both freight and people at whiplash speeds. It’s reportedly the largest engineering project ever proposed in Texas.

Out in California, a possibility for Young’s money is the Alameda Corridor, which carries thousands of trucks daily from the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Together, these two ports comprise the San Pedro Bay Ports, the largest port complex in the U.S. While the Alameda Corridor improvement plan centers largely on improving nearby rail to more efficiently move goods from the docks to other distribution points, it also calls for an elevated “truck expressway” to get products from the port terminals more quickly.

As interesting as these Texas and California projects sound, Young seems to be giving first dibs to Virginia’s I-81 improvement project. That's good for us. It’s not every day that someone expresses a desire to give us a billion-and-a-half bucks.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is now considering two private-sector proposals to widen I-81, making it safer for all who travel it. One suggests adding one car-only lane in each direction, with truck-climbing lanes on about a dozen steep grades. Cars and trucks would still be generally mixed. Adding these two lanes, which would be built in the median, would cost about $5.9 billion, some of which would be collected by placing tolls on both cars and trucks.

The other proposal suggests adding two dedicated truck lanes in each direction. It’d also give truckers their own rest stops and on- and off-ramps where other major roads meet up with I-81. Everything here, too, would be built in the medians. This would cost about $6.3 billion. It’d only require tolls from trucks -- no tolls at all on cars.

Young wants to show the nation and the world how the physical separation of trucks from cars stands to more efficiently move goods from here to there while making the roads safer for all. His interest in making I-81 his demonstration project stems from both the road’s unquestionable needs and its close proximity to Washington. He’d be able to carry his congressional colleagues to a nearby interstate originally built for 15 percent truck traffic that’s now carrying 40 percent, and he’d be able to show them how well his long-ago vision of interstates with dedicated truck lanes is working.

Young is as gregarious as he is wily. He’s got a personality that comes from 30 years of congressional glad-handing and backslapping and a caginess that most certainly was developed during years of working in the Alaskan wild as both a riverboat captain and trapper.

It was during WW II that the Alcan Highway was built to connect Alaska to the U.S. mainland. Young has seen firsthand the value that comes from a good road project. The Winchester-to-Bristol improvements to I-81 stand to be the biggest one-time road project in the country. Thus, its appeal to Young.

This Alaska congressman stands to be one of Virginia’s new best friends. Here’s to new friends.

Let any elected or appointed official know what you think and how you feel by clicking here.

Post a message to Preston Bryant's message board

The Bryant Archive

Rollison to VDOT

Hannity & Newman

Newer deal on Medicaid

Moody's blues

Warner's union bug

Griffin will turn state GOP right side up

Texas and Virginia

Colorado and Virginia