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In the meantime, traffic patterns have changed. Interstate 66 has been completed from the Capital Beltway to Interstate 81, and traffic on Rt. 211 to the Park has diminished.
There is no question but that the present stretch of road between Washington and Sperryville is less than perfect in places. These problems can be corrected at a fraction of the cost for the proposed dual-laning and without the disruption and destruction which the present plan entails.
As the Sperryville Community Group said at the 1974 public meeting: “People from the large metropolitan areas to the east of Rappahannock enjoy visiting small villages like Sperryville . . . This is a different part of America from their normal environment. And, unless some thought and action is taken to preserve our small towns and villages, they too will disappear from the American landscape. It has happened in other parts of the United States and it can happen in Virginia.”
Or, perhaps most eloquent of all was James Swindler, speaking at the same meeting: “The others will take the precious farm land that we can never get back. You can condemn my house. I can move that. But I can’t move my land.”
It seems to me that our priorities are distorted. We agonize over spending one million dollars to expand our local high school, yet are not offended by the Highway Department’s proposal to spend thirteen million dollars - at least - to widen four miles of highway.
You do not have to have a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics, which I do, to understand that the dual-laning of Rt. 211 up to Sperryville is not in the best agricultural, commercial or residential interests of Rappahannock County.
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