Stalled roads rouse ire

A 1989 law says promised projects must be built. But Gov. Easley wants to use bond money for road upkeep

By LYNN BONNER, Staff Writer

Gov. Mike Easley's plan to use $700 million in bond money for highway maintenance might first have to clear its own roadblock: legislators angry that billions of dollars in long-planned highway projects haven't been built.

Easley's administration is asking the General Assembly to take the bond money, originally authorized for highway construction but never sold, and use it to fix or improve existing roads.

Lawsuits, low local interest or objections by residents and environmental agencies have slowed work on many projects promised under a 1989 initiative known as the Highway Trust Fund.

Under the law, the state must build certain four-lane highways and urban loops and pave rural dirt roads. Now, some roads or bridges planned for tricky areas in the mountains and the coast may never be built.

Frustration is growing. Some legislators want an accounting of the status of each road in the 1989 program, which is paid for with gas taxes and fees on drivers. Others blame environmental administrators and want them fired.

Rural legislators are pressing to use some of the money to lay asphalt on 6,000 miles of unpaved dirt roads. Other lawmakers want a time limit on environmental reviews of road plans.

State transportation officials say that using the money for road maintenance won't delay the construction projects. But some legislators remain leery.

Rep. Connie Wilson, a Charlotte Republican, wants more evidence that state regulators aren't needlessly impeding construction plans. "I would prefer we look at those projects and make an educated decision before we issue bonds," Wilson said.

William G. Ross Jr., the state's secretary of environment and natural resources, is puzzled by the complaints. He said he and Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett have worked for two years to have their departments improve the handling of highway permits.

"We're in the process of solving what has been the biggest cause of delay and expense in the permitting of highways," Ross said.

Despite the grumbling, Tippett expects legislators to back the Easley road maintenance plan. He said the state should continue to chip away at its 1989 list of roads -- many of which have vocal political and local support -- though it will be decades before some are finished.

For each a reason

Transportation officials say there are about $8 billion in highway construction projects that have been in planning books for at least 14 years but haven't been built. Each delayed project has a unique set of circumstances behind its slip down the schedule.

A plan to build a four-lane road through Nantahala National Forest is a grandfather of moldering highway proposals.

The project, dating from Lyndon Johnson's administration and the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, would open up one of the most remote sections of the state to more economic development.

The proposed 27-mile road now has an estimated cost of more than $600 million. Some of the construction -- widening about nine miles of existing highway -- is almost finished. But the state has not taken a serious look at the toughest part, building eight miles through the mountains.

"That project is so far out there we don't know if it will ever happen in our lifetime, certainly not in my lifetime," said Tippett, who is 63.

The road would require two tunnels, one under the Appalachian Trail in Graham County, and the other more than 5,000 feet long under mountains straddling the Cherokee-Graham county line. That type of construction gets lots of scrutiny to minimize environmental damage.

One challenge the DOT faces in building through the Snowbird Mountains is "hot rock," which has high sulfur content.

Rain on hot rock releases the sulfur, and the runoff can increase the acidity of nearby streams. The DOT must have plans for neutralizing hot rock, and either using or disposing of it, before building through areas that have it.

At the urging of federal regulators, the state will consider improvements to existing roads between Cherokee and Graham as an alternative.

But the original plan still has strong support.

Rep. Roger West, a Republican from Cherokee County, wants the DOT to abandon the tunnel and cut a road through the mountains instead.

"I don't know what the problem is," West said. "If you were willing, that mountain wouldn't be anything to build a road across."

Wetlands present a more common road-building hurdle.

State and federal agencies have been arguing for years about a proposed bridge across Currituck Sound to connect the Outer Banks to the mainland.

Bridge support

Advocates say the bridge is needed to provide a hurricane evacuation route and to keep traffic from clogging N.C. 12, which runs down the barrier island.

"Anybody with common sense would say that the bridge needs to be built," said Paul Sutherland, mayor of the Outer Banks town of Southern Shores. "There's only one exit from Currituck County to the mainland in case of a hurricane."

Bridge supporters have yet to convince the Army Corps of Engineers, the state Division of Water Quality or a half-dozen other state and federal agencies with a say in the project.

Some of these agencies question whether the benefits would outweigh the environmental cost: destruction of wetlands, degraded fish and wildlife habitat and increased development.

Transportation officials are considering a broader plan that could include widening N.C. 12 and U.S. 158, the mainland road in Currituck. But Outer Banks mayors and others don't want N.C. 12 widened.

"It would destroy the character of our town," Sutherland said.

Bridge supporters have collected more than 10,000 signatures on a "Build the bridge, preserve our roads" petition.

Government agencies have suspended the bridge talks while the state makes a detailed study of hurricane evacuations.

Clayton bypass

In the Triangle, the more attention the Clayton bypass gets, the more questions arise. The proposed bypass is a 10-mile road connecting U.S. 70 in Johnston County and Interstate 40 in Wake County.

Legislators from Wake, Johnston and counties east are steamed that a proposed construction schedule was altered recently -- in part so the state could answer questions the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service raised about its impact on an endangered species in Swift Creek, the dwarf wedge mussel.

The creek sits south of a proposed interchange that could turn into a massive, four-level structure if it includes a connection with the Wake Outer Loop.

But Sen. John Kerr, a Goldsboro Democrat, is tired of delays in what he calls the most important road project in the eastern counties. The Clayton bypass would be a link in a chain of new highways connecting Raleigh to Morehead City on the coast.

Commuters and truck drivers from eastern counties to Raleigh get caught in terrible Clayton traffic, Kerr said.

"This mussel is everywhere," Kerr said. "It's endangered like a fly. It's the people who'll be endangered sitting in all that traffic, if they have hypertension and road rage."

Staff writer Lynn Bonner can be reached at 829-4821 or at lbonner@newsobserver.com.