MILDRED SPANGLER IS HACKING AWAY at the delay in widening Interstate 81.

The sturdy senior citizen and longtime Ironto resident hired a crew to clear a 10-acre forest she owns beside the interstate to accommodate a planned truck lane.

Spangler said she sold the trees for a small amount of money and anticipates selling the Montgomery County land to the government.

Now there's a bare patch visible from the southbound lanes near mile marker 124.

It's the state's turn to get moving.

COMING GRIDLOCK

State transportation officials in 2005 said that without a major widening effort along the length of Interstate 81 in Virginia, congestion will rule many miles of the road by 2035. Without billions in spending, speeds will slow and traffic will not flow as freely.

• Climbing lanes on I-81, proposed and existing
• The coming gridlock of 2035

SOURCE: VDOT, I-81 Corridor Improvement Study, 2006.

"I'm just wondering, as slow as they're going, if I'll live to see it completed," said Spangler, who is over 80.

Virginia has unfinished business surrounding how to keep I-81 moving when money is tight and needs are many.

Widening must happen during the next 25 years to avoid congestion, but the state lacks the money even for all needed interim improvements.

While a few projects are entering construction, the big picture is of a road without funding for a stable future or even a clear vision for what it should become.

"In congested urban areas, we are adding lanes. In areas where we know there are issues with the grades, we're adding truck lanes," Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton said. "And then in areas where we know there are safety issues, we're also putting money into safety improvement.

"We don't really have, I'm going to say, a comprehensive vision for the entire corridor."

Billions to add capacity not in state's coffers

Ten years ago, Connaughton said, there was a vision: to widen I-81 end to end.

"It was controversial," he said, recalling opposition in the Shenandoah Valley and in the environmental community.

But Connaughton said he favors returning to a strategy to achieve a new or revised long-term vision and pledged to announce a process to reach it.

"Obviously in the long term, we need to add capacity onto the roadway," Connaughton said. "From my own personal experience on riding on the road … and from the studies."

The most pressing issue, officials agree, is how to pay for it.

Tens of billions worth of projects around the state lack funding.

"Virginia must take action immediately to address the funding crisis," a state-federal transportation task force urged in a March report to the General Assembly titled "VTrans2035."

Until that happens, officials are leaving unanswered the long-term question of how to keep I-81 moving.

To be sure, many other states' efforts to upgrade roads are equally lacking.

A nationwide accounting of unmet needs in public infrastructure would run into the trillions of dollars.

"While there are differences across states, the condition of America's infrastructure is, on the whole, poor," said a July 2009 report from the National Governors Association.

"Approximately 12 percent of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient; more than two-thirds of peak-hour traffic occurs in congested conditions."

But the Montgomery County truck lane does look like it's going forward, with construction expected to start in early 2011 and take almost three years. In addition, a truck lane under construction in Rockbridge County is expected to be finished in October 2012.

The two projects appear on a list of a dozen truck-climbing lanes state engineers determined in a 2006 study would enhance safety. The Rockbridge and Montgomery projects are the two largest projects, both in terms of length and money. They were deemed most urgent, based on crash history and traffic volume, Virginia Department of Transportation spokesman Jason Bond said.

An excavator clears a hillside of the I-81 truck-climbing lane near mile marker 196 in Rockbridge County. The 7-mile widening project will replace bridges at Routes 716, 712, 710 and improve the road's shoulders and guard rails. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

Photo gallery: Browse more images from the road

But even a dozen new truck lanes might not be enough.

Building a truck lane is "not adding capacity," said Fred Altizer, former administrator of the Salem District for VDOT.

"You should think of it as a safety project that allows trucks and slower vehicles to move over a few miles and get out of the way," he said.

"An additional capacity lane would be something that would start at Christiansburg and you could stay on it all the way till you got to [Interstate] 581."

Engineer: 'Band- Aids' used instead of fixes

I-81 handles 60,000 to 66,000 vehicles on a typical day in the Roanoke Valley. Speeding cars dart in and out between 18-wheelers determined to get their loads delivered on time.

Commuters, delivery truck drivers, construction vehicles, buses, recreational vehicles, tourists and college students join the truckers on the road that accounts for the highest levels of traffic, the highest number of trucks and the highest speeds of any in the region.

It's all moving on four lanes in most locations, each direction a two-lane path 24 feet wide. It's about the same amount of lane space vehicles have on Orange Avenue in Roanoke, but narrower than the end zone of a football field.

Narrow shoulders, curves or bends that restrict sight distance and steep grades that slow heavy vehicles are also issues.

With trucks making up an average of 23 percent of the traffic along all of I-81 in Virginia in 2008 , and more in certain spots, the road has been pushed beyond the truck capacity for which it was designed — 15 percent.

The Roanoke section is so busy with traffic of all kinds, construction can only be performed at night, which is slightly more costly because of the need for lights and the higher risk of death or injury to crews.

Sean Grinnell , Salem District traffic engineer with VDOT, said his department's budget is too small for the job it must do.

"I feel like we're putting Band- Aids out there rather than doing a full-blown surge and fixing the problem," Grinnell said.

Think Thanksgiving traffic year-round

Altizer speaks with some urgency about these matters.

Engineers and experts were brought in several years ago to forecast the future of I-81, most of which still consists of the two lanes in each direction originally built between 1957 and 1971.

They said in a late 2005 report that without additional capacity, the road will become over crowded by 2035. Severe congestion would be likely in a number of places, including the Roanoke Valley.

You don't have to wait until 2035 to see how unpleasant that might be.

Motorists traveling the Sunday after Thanksgiving, deemed the busiest travel day of the year on I-81, routinely generate congestion comparable to what the valley could experience every day if no new lanes are built, according to officials at VDOT.

Northbound traffic on I-81 approaches a reconstructed bridge over Kessler Mill Road near Salem. The location illustrates how roomy the road could become if it were widened. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

Vehicles make their way down I-81 near Wytheville. I-81 and I-77 overlap for eight miles near the spot. The area is yet another illustration of the possibilities that widening I-81 might bring. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

Photo gallery: Browse more images from the road

It is an observation, not the result of a study, but it carries weight all the same.

Last year, I-81 carried 82,564 vehicles — 31 percent more than usual volume — during the Sunday after Thanksgiving, according to a counter near Exit 141 at the interchange for Virginia 419.

It did not go well.

Up and down I-81, state police reported scores of wrecks, many of them chain reactions in which one vehicle bumped the vehicle ahead, driving it forward into another.

The problem was not tractor-trailers. Trucks made up just 8 percent of traffic or one-third the usual truck percentage. The trouble was too many passenger vehicles.

Richard Flora, a member of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, drives the most-traveled part in the region at the busiest time — I-81 between Hollins and Virginia 419 in Salem during the morning and evening commutes.

He said he relies on defensive driving techniques he learned while he was a volunteer for Hollins Fire & Rescue . He sees the problem squarely through his windshield: heavy traffic.

Traffic has tripled on the section running through the Roanoke Valley since 1975.

"Somehow we're going to have to reduce the traffic [growth rate], expand the interstate or a combination of the two or we're going to have gridlock," Flora said.

Widening talk ongoing for more than a decade

Widening has been studied and studied.

Ten years ago, John Marsh of Winchester — former congressman, counselor to President Ford and one-time secretary of the Army — sat on a commission formed by Congress called the I-81 Safety Task Force.

The panel issued a scathing report in 2000 that said, "Many local drivers are very emotional about the interstate, afraid to use it, and very angry about it."

Marsh said in a November interview that the task force concluded I-81 was "very unsafe and had to be addressed."

However, "there has not been significant progress," he said.

During the late 1990s, a period tainted by a spate of horrific I-81 wrecks, state officials began preparing to widen all of I-81 to six lanes (the current width of Interstate 581) or, in metropolitan areas such as Roanoke, to eight lanes.

Officials said it would take about 30 years under conventional pay-as-you-go financing.

But there was progress.

In a segmented approach, state leaders in 1999 budgeted $21 million to design the widening of 16 miles of I-81 in the Roanoke Valley — a milestone.

But before construction began, the state put the brakes on that widening approach and embraced the possibility of widening all of I-81 as public-private sector joint undertaking.

Although the state never chose either of two collaborative proposals, the following concepts along with their 2003 prices were put before the public:

• Star Solutions, a group of construction, engineering and financing companies, proposed widening to eight lanes, four lanes per direction, with half dedicated to trucks, for $7.8 billion.
• Fluor Virginia, another builders consortium, proposed widening to six lanes for $1.8 billion.

Both concepts were coupled with toll booths to raise construction cash.

The state opened a project management office in Roanoke in 2003 to oversee the widening and staffed it with one of its top people, Altizer.

Traffic backs up behind a stalled vehicle on I-81 in Rockbridge County, where crews are adding a 7-mile truck-climbing lane. The $74 million project will allow slower vehicles to remain in the right lane. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

Photo gallery: Browse more images from the road

Three years passed as the state studied potential collaborative partners and their proposals along with the environmental impact of doing major work to I-81, while awaiting federal permission for toll booths.

Sometime during this period, project representatives went as far as revealing that some residents who lived beside I-81 could lose their homes and yards.

"According to them, the emergency lane would run right through my kitchen," said Eddie Martin, who lives on Poplar Avenue in Salem, near the high school and Exit 137.

Martin is still there.

State has settled for small, interim upgrades

In the final analysis, state officials accepted a consulting team's conclusion that no single widening concept would meet the diverse needs of I-81.

End-to-end widening came off the table in late 2006, replaced by an incremental approach to addressing safety risks and capacity constraints that was seen at the time as quicker and more focused. Public-private talks ended.

Members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, gubernatorial appointees who oversee VDOT, pick projects such as the truck-climbing lanes from a long list of improvements.

The board held to a long-term vision to widen I-81, authorizing in principle the construction of up to two new lanes in each direction "only where needed to address 2035 travel demands," according to a 2006 resolution.

But what gets built is limited by the size of the state's transportation billfold.

So, in spite of countless studies and meetings and extensive discussion, the state is without an explicit action plan to address expected traffic volume increases.

"There's been a lot of ink spilled about I-81. It's a shame it's not been used to print money to pay for the widening," Bond said.

One thing to come out of the long process was that the Federal Highway Administration granted Virginia tolling authority on I-81.

But the authority was never used because of the revision of plans. The General Assembly has since passed legislation that prevents private entities from putting tolls on I-81 without approval from state lawmakers. Connaughton has asked for permission to transfer the tolling authority to Interstate 95.

To be sure, I-81 is not the road it was 10 years ago.

Crews have grooved the shoulder with rumble strips, raised the height of guardrails, mounted rock fencing, hung traffic cameras, put up lighted message boards, established a radio advisory system and lengthened ramps at interchanges.

In addition, several high-dollar, high-impact projects have been completed.

Mildred Spangler of Ironto cleared 10 acres of land she owns beside I-81 in anticipation of selling all or some of it to the state for a planned truck-climbing lane. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

A logging scar marks 10 acres beside I-81 in Montgomery County near the site of a planned truck-climbing lane. Owner Mildred Spangler cleared the land in anticipation of the project. Photo by KYLE GREEN | THE ROANOKE TIMES

Photo gallery: Browse more images from the road

Crews reconstructed the Exit 118 interchange in Christiansburg and widened I-81 at Kessler Mill Road/Mason Creek in Salem and at Buffalo Creek in Rockbridge County.

These projects, located where

I-81 suddenly gets roomy for a mile or less , give an idea of what a widened I-81 would look like. There are short stretches where traffic spreads into three lanes and those facing breakdowns can pull over to generous shoulders.

Next up, a builder is expected to be hired to design and build a third southbound lane from mile marker 125 near Ironto to mile marker 120 near Christiansburg in Montgomery County at a cost of $75 million.

CH2M Hill Constructors Inc. of Chantilly submitted what VDOT has deemed the successful bid, though final paperwork has not been signed.

Construction is expected to begin early next year and run until November 2013, VDOT engineer Alan Saunders said.

During construction, the speed limit will likely be reduced to 55 mph and crews may erect a barrier wall — meaning the outside shoulder will be unusable. If that happens, there will be gaps in the barrier wall for stopping and a wrecker kept on call. Mobile cameras will scan the construction zone.

In a project that will also widen the inside and outside shoulders of the five-mile stretch, crews are expected to blast rock, flatten high ground, build embankments and retaining walls and reconstruct supports for overpasses to create a wider passage across Christiansburg Mountain, Saunders said. Two lanes in each direction will stay open, he said, though short-term spot lane closures are possible.

No homes will be displaced, though the state will need to buy a sliver of land along the state's existing right-of-way. The state has a policy of fully compensating affected landowners including for lost timber or minerals, if any, Saunders said.

Mildred Spangler is expecting the state will soon come calling for a portion of her Ironto property from which the trees have been sheared.

"I don't know how much they'll take," she said.

Saunders did not know for sure yet, but believes it will be "much less than what she's got cleared."

But the work is not the sort of thing that will transform the more than 40-year-old interstate.

VDOT's website, under "Major initiatives" for I-81, reads, "None at this time."