VDOT Project Pipeline study SA-25-01/SA-25-02 · Route 412/685, McCoy Road to N. Main Street · Started March 2025, scheduled to end August 2026

Prices Fork Road carries a lot of Blacksburg's daily traffic, and for the past year and a half VDOT has been studying what to do about it. That study — a Project Pipeline study covering Route 412/685 from McCoy Road to North Main Street — is scheduled to wrap up this month, which means the recommendations that shape this corridor for the next decade are being finalized right now.

What residents said. Two rounds of public input drew serious participation. The first phase, May 19 to June 2, 2025, collected responses from 1,440 people: 93% put reducing congestion at the top, followed by corridor and intersection safety at 87% and speeding and aggressive driving at 85%. Asked specifically about safety problems, 58% named missing sidewalks — the single most-cited concern.

What people actually backed. The long-range walk-and-bike improvements were the runaway favorite — 60 to 64% strongly support on every one of the five segments. Among the near-term items, the Old Glade Road left-turn extension led at 63% strongly support (87% counting somewhat-support), the North Main roundabout flashing lights hit 62%, and enlarging the sidewalk areas at Toms Creek and Stanger hit 61%.

The Orchard Street package is the contested one. Widening sidewalks there drew 48% strong support and the crosswalk-and-beacon 43% — but closing the left-turn lane at Orchard drew 20% strongly opposed, the highest opposition anywhere in the survey, with the crosswalk-and-beacon second at 17%.

This is a study, not a construction project. It doesn't set construction dates and it doesn't fund anything. What it produces is a prioritized list of recommendations with cost estimates — the paperwork required to compete for SMART SCALE Round 7 and other funding programs. Whether any of it gets built depends on that funding round, not on this study's conclusion.

🔗 Project Pipeline study page · Blacksburg Speed Limit Initiative

Thousands of people walk, run, and ride the Huckleberry every week. Far fewer know it's named after a train, and almost nobody knows the train got the nickname because it was slow.

The line started in 1902 as the Virginia Anthracite Coal and Railway Company, hauling coal from the Merrimac Mine down to Christiansburg. It reached Blacksburg in 1904 and quickly became the way Virginia Tech cadets got to and from town. Passenger service opened September 15, 1904, at 35 to 50 cents one way. The Blacksburg depot stood near where the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library is today.

Here's the part worth repeating at a cookout. The train stalled. Often. And when it did, passengers would climb down and pick the wild huckleberries growing along the tracks while they waited. The stop picked up the nickname "Huckleberry Crossing," the nickname stuck to the train, and 120 years later it's on the trail signs.

Cars did the line in. The last steam run was July 25, 1958, electric operation ran until August 9 that year, the Blacksburg depot closed in the summer of 1966, and the railroad was abandoned in 1967. The right-of-way then sat unused for roughly two decades.

The trail came back the slow way, too. Montgomery County approved it as its first bikeway in February 1990. The Commonwealth Transportation Board put up $453,424 in October 1993. Construction on the first 3.2-mile segment started April 5, 1996, and the ribbon was cut that December 7. Friends of the Huckleberry Trail, founded in 1991, has raised more than $5 million to keep extending it since.

Today it runs close to 15 miles on 12-foot asphalt in three segments — the original stretch, Huckleberry North, and Huckleberry South.

🔗 Friends of the Huckleberry Trail · trail map and county page · VT Magazine on the Huckleberry line

🧠 Trivia answer: From right here in town. Virginia Tech has run its own 40-acre quarry inside Blacksburg since 1869 — it's now surrounded by residential neighborhoods. It turns out about 2,500 to 2,600 tons of Hokie Stone a year, roughly 25 to 50 tons a week, which covers around 87,500 square feet of building face. That's about 80% of the stone used on campus; the other 20% comes from a Montgomery County farm and is finished at the quarry. And it isn't limestone — it's dolomite, and the color range from pink to black comes from the conditions when it formed.