Amendments based on citizen comments about Interstate 81 led to easy approval of an environmental review Wednesday by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

One amendment ensures that a study of switching freight from trucks to rail in the I-81 corridor will be added to the environmental document next summer after the multistate analysis is complete.

The action cleared the way for faster safety improvements and truck-climbing lanes on hills so Virginia can use $140 million in federal funds.

Other changes adopted Wednesday mean the board will have a voice in deciding, later, whether I-81 will get more lanes in the future.

Activist groups were pleased.

"These are huge improvements," said Trip Pollard of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Findings from the rail study, the activists hope, may show that I-81 won't need all of the six- and eight-lane capacity that the environmental study recommends.

Michael Testerman of Rail Solution said including the rail study's results in the final environmental document "is exactly what we wanted." Rail Solution has acquired a high profile on I-81 issues with the General Assembly, governor's office and Virginia Department of Transportation.

Further, a decision on whether to add lanes to the entire 325 miles of I-81 will remain in the Virginia board's hands, to be decided in years to come. Activists said the original environmental document would have cleared the way for state and federal transportation officials to push for construction of those lanes.

Environmental groups and rail advocates had raised a unified set of objections to the resolution they expected, as late as Wednesday morning, that the board would adopt.

Those objections said in part that approving the environmental document while the rail study is just getting started could cause its predicted vehicle counts on I-81 in future years to be off target. The study is being done by Norfolk Southern Corp. and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

Opponents also said the board was in too big a hurry, wanting to approve the environmental document that gave blank-check approval for adding four or more lanes to I-81 in order to qualify for the federal funding of short-term safety fixes.

Activist groups successfully encouraged people to shower those objections onto board members via e-mail, letters to the editor and news releases.

That campaign's results could be seen in several amendments proposed by board member Jim Bowie of Bristol to the draft version of the resolution approving the document.

Those amendments caused the activists' objections to almost evaporate. But not completely.

Pollard said the environmental review, done by VDOT and a consultant, still does not adequately address air pollution problems.

Also, Pollard said, the review does not look at traffic on local roads near I-81 that might be improved more cheaply to handle commuters and business vehicles. It doesn't attempt to connect with localities' land-use planning, either, he said.

And Rees Shearer, another member of Rail Solution, said the group will watch the rail study to see if it comes close to reaching the group's goal of diverting 60 percent of freight shipments from truck to rail.

About 30 people spoke to the board before it discussed the resolution Wednesday.

One of them, Lorinda Lionberger of Franklin County, is a former member of the transportation board. She said that when trucks and faster cars maneuver around slow-moving vehicles in the right-hand lane, I-81 is a dangerous highway, particularly in the rain.

Even if 50 percent of trucks were removed from the highway, she said, the dangerous situation still would exist. Adding a third lane, however, would let slower vehicles use the right-hand lane while faster ones could operate more safely in the other two lanes.

Lisa Tracy, a Lexington resident who said she once lived near a large highway in the Northeast, said the environmental review needs better traffic projections based on declining use of oil supplies. And, she said, "added lanes do not guarantee a safer trip."

Steve Chapin, identifying himself as a Roanoke County resident, said I-81 needs to be improved. Railroads continue to set records each year for hauling intermodal freight containers, "and yet, trucks continue to increase on I-81."

Martha Orrick of Elliston said she lives beside the railroad tracks where Norfolk Southern proposes to build an intermodal yard to handle the kind of freight that might be diverted from I-81, and she said seeing those containers on trains would make her feel safer when using the highway.

But, she said, the board should make sure the project's environmental impact has been analyzed along with its impact on people in the community.

Mark McCaskill, speaking for the staff of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission, said the valley faces a new air-quality problem because of particulate pollution.

"We are right up to the threshold" where limits on growth might be imposed on the valley, McCaskill said.

He recommended that places where truckers stop to rest or sleep be equipped with electric devices that heat their interiors so the trucks don't have to run on idle all night, spewing diesel exhaust.

McCaskill also recommended prohibiting truckers from idling in areas along I-81 where they now often pull onto the shoulders of ramps to rest at night.