State highway plans still largely ignore aging I-95

Published November 25, 2015

Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, November 25, 2015.

Many of us will be thinking about our highway system this week. We'll be on it, quite possibly failing to make the sort of rapid progress we had in mind.

AAA Carolinas predicts more than 1.3 million North Carolinians will travel 50 or more miles from home during the Thanksgiving holiday. The holiday spirit is fueled this year by the cheapest gasoline we've seen since 2008 - below $2 a gallon in many places across the state, including here in Cumberland County.

In many places, unfortunately, the roads aren't up to the challenge of heavy traffic. We have long since relinquished our once-proud title of "Good Roads State." We have thousands of bridges that need repair or replacement, and thousands of miles of highways that are years beyond their replacement deadline.

The reason is the failure of state government to plan for, and fund, the work our highways need.

Fortunately, that appears to be changing. The General Assembly has ended its annual raids on the state's highway funds, no longer taking the money raised from gasoline and other automotive taxes to balance the budget. This will leave an extra $200 million a year in the highway funds. Unfortunately, more fuel-efficient vehicles and a cap on the gasoline tax have put a crimp in the funds' cash flow.

Gov. Pat McCrory this year proposed a $2 billion bond issue to jump-start work on our roads. Lawmakers balked, preferring to push bonds for buildings, most of them on state college campuses. But they did appropriate $1.6 billion extra for highway work, which will add new road projects across the state.

Around here, that will mean accelerated work on the N.C. 24 widening and Fayetteville's Outer Loop.

Interstate 40 gets plenty of attention in the plan, as it should, and so do Interstates 85 and 77. But our state's oldest interstate, the one in greatest need of help, is all but ignored. The state's expanded highway plan includes interchange work in Harnett and Robeson counties, but that's all.

Meanwhile, the Main Street of the East Coast is still overcrowded, spanned by substandard bridges and suffering from a design that dates back to the 1950s.

Back in 2012, a state transportation executive said it would take about 80 years to bring this state's 182 miles of the aging interstate up to modern safety standards if no new revenue sources are found. But a public furor over proposals to fund the work through tolls scared off Democrats and Republicans alike. Apparently, they're still cowering, instead of addressing one of North Carolina's biggest highway challenges.

We hope holiday travels put some of our elected and appointed leaders on I-95 this week, as a reminder that we need, at the least, to start talking about it again.

http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-state-highway-plans-still-largely-ignore-aging-i/article_eadaf3f4-c1bd-59bb-922d-cc341978fe7c.html