November 27, 2009

Old-fashioned all-wood guardrails along more than half the 460-mile Blue Ridge Parkway aren't much use at stopping cars.

Mike Molling, chief of maintenance and engineering for the parkway, says the older rails can't stop a car moving at 45 MPH, and that many are too low to the ground to be effective at all.

A $7 million replacement project three years in the making will start next month and should wrap up by June 2011.

Molling says the new rails are made of steel-backed timber and can hold back cars traveling at the speed limit along the parkway.