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original time for completion of construction, he said.
At the start of the public hearing Mr. Pethtel summarized what the highway department has been able to accomplish statewide as a result of the General Assembly’s approval of approving Governor Gerald L. Baliles’s transportation package.
“The number of construction projects under way has increased from 447 in October 1986 to 752 in October 1988,” he said. “The value of those projects has increased from $868 million to $1.5 billion. And we have Bililt 439 miles of new roadway over jusK^he last two years, compared to l^mJi^s the two previous years.”
“We were the first state to have a full-time antitrust unit that monitors and analyzes the construction bids we receive,” Mr. Pethtel said. As a result he said, “the prices we are paying are at about the same as in the first quarter of 1986, probably because of increased competition between construction companies.”
He estimated that as a result “we will be able to complete our most pressing highway needs in about a decade rather than the 20 to 40 years it was expected to take before the transportation initiatives were put in effect."
•It does not appear that all the transportation problems in the Culpeper District will be solved in 10 years, however, as most of the time in the hearing was occupied by local representatives talking about increasing traffic problems. Many attended to request the commission’s consideration of by-passes for their towns, ranging from a request for a Route 33 by-pass of Standardsville in Greene County to a request from Lynchburg, which is not in the Culpeper District, for a Route 29 bypass for Charlottesville, so traffic coming into Lynchburg won't be slowed up by traveling through Charlottesville.
Hospital mistakes
According to the Virginia Extension Service, a recent nationwide study found that 98 percent of all hospital bills contained errors. The most common errors, the survey found, were overbilling for drugs, time in intensive care and the total number of days spent in the hospital. The Extension Service suggests that patients keep a diary of any hospital stay and discuss specific services with their physician.
82.6%