History is simply a collection of decisions we’ve made over the years. We know the roads we took to get here. Oftentimes, though, it’s easy to forget the roads we didn’t take. This is the fourth of a five-part series that looks at projects proposed in Virginia from the 1940s into the 1990s that were never built but which would have changed things if they had been. Today: The 1980s.
From 1983 to 1985, a battle extraordinaire played out in Virginia that pitted some of the state’s most powerful business interests against another: the railroads against the utilities and coal companies, with environmentalists and the agriculture community teaming up with the railroads. Yes, that was an odd pairing all around.
Things that could have been
Monday:A proposal in the 1940s to locate the United Nations in Albemarle County
Tuesday:A proposal in the 1950s and 60s to route Interstate 64 through Farmville and Lynchburg…