A notorious stretch of Interstate 81 in Botetourt County is getting straightened out. It’s just the latest in a series of major upgrades to the highway.
Interstate 81 is a crucial corridor for commercial traffic on the East Coast, connecting factories and markets in the Southeast to those in the Northeast.
"It is the quickest, most efficient way to get between those two markets," says Dale Bennett, president and CEO of the Virginia Trucking Association.
So Bennett was pleased when state lawmakers struck a deal to divert a share of gas tax revenues to fund a major initiative upgrading Interstate 81. The I-81 Corridor Improvement Program consists of an initial round of 64 projects, plus some smaller initiatives.
A multi-year group of construction projects essentially six-lane 32 miles of interstate from Christiansburg to Daleville. That stretch links the Roanoke and New River valleys over a mountainous stretch used by truckers and commuters both.
The four mile stretch around Salem is currently under construction and should be complete next year. Two more sections, south from Salem to Ironto and then across Christiansburg Mountain to exit 116, will be the subject of more than $1 billion dollars of construction through 2035.
The stretch between Roanoke and Daleville will see heavy construction beginning next spring, up until 2031. The Virginia Department of Transportation is also working on projects in Winchester, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Wytheville and Bristol.
Then there's the S-curve, a 2-mile stretch between Buchanan and Arcadia.
"If you've driven through that section, you just inherently feel like, 'Man, this is a safety issue, we need to do something about it,'" Bennett says.
"If you drive it at night, it's very dark there, and if it's raining, it's an additional challenge," says Dave Covington. He is VDOT's I-81 program delivery director. "When you're surrounded by trucks and you're going through these challenging curves, and trucks are drifting into your lane and there's narrow shoulders."
The S-curve has been a problem for a long time, but it wasn't included in the 81 Improvement Program. In October, Gov. Glenn Youngkin to eliminate the curve by relocating I-81 and U.S. Route 11. It's a complicated project involving multiple bridges, roads and Purgatory Creek.
"The good news is resolving that one curve with a somewhat straight line really fixes three curves," Covington says."
State officials expect federal authorization early next year. VDOT says the S-curve project probably won't be finished until at least 2031.
