NCDOT slams two years' worth of brakes on East End Connector

Tip o' the hat to Barry for alerting me to the story posted over at the N&O. The updated version of the draft Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) has been posted over at the North Carolina Department of Tippett Transportation today, and for the Bull City, the news ain't good.

Yes, folks, the East End Connector has been delayed, again. This time, another two years added to the schedule, with the EEC greenlighted for construction in 2014, two years after the initial start date of 2012. No word whether this will delay the acquisition of property for the roads.

For those keeping score at home, this stretches the time from the road's announcement/concept to completion at approximately 57 years. No, that's not a typo. In 1959, mind you, Cary barely existed on a map, jet planes were six years away from landing at the then-four-year-old terminal, and Research Triangle Park was struggling to attract tenants. Yet the need for the EEC was clear.

Mind you, it's tempting to be consternated that the EEC -- Durham's #1-rated road priority for many years -- has been pushed back two years even as several Wake County projects like the widening of I-40 through southwest Raleigh and Cary and the re-correction of the flawed I-540/I-40 ramps are moved up in time by the same amount.

Don't be. Wake, Durham, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth, etc., are all victims of the ridiculous approach that North Carolina takes to road-building, particularly in how dollars are allocated to rural versus poor counties. Want to drive out to Rocky Mount? Not sure why you would, but don't worry, there's a four-lane Interstate-quality highway to get you there, and then through there halfway to the Outer Banks. Ditto Wilson. Now Asheboro is getting into the scene with the senseless I-73/I-74 corridor smack down the middle of the state; never mind that some other states have no interest in building their own versions of it.

As Raleigh's mayor Charles Meeker points out in the N&O, Wake pays nearly $160 million in Federal and state gas tax each year, but gets back just a fraction of it. Ditto Durham and all the other urban counties.

Our fine governor has promised a blue-ribbon committee to study the problem, but the problem in North Carolina is rural road pork so fine it would get its own blue-ribbon at the State Fair. Until we fix our road (and transit) priorities and recognize the need to improve urban roadway infrastructures, we're literally not going anywhere.

Comments

[Granville Guy]

This is depressing news. I am giving up hope on ever using the East End Connector. For 15 years I have navigated my way through many different routes just to get from the Durham Freeway to I85 and back. I think I’ll be retired before that road is built, if at all. Raleigh/Wake and the rest of you I40 commuters…you win. Durham, it was a good fight but I don’t think this road will ever be built.

[Michael Bacon]

There's nothing wrong with our transportation priorities from a geographical perspective. Adding transportation infrastructure is one of the most effective means of economic development, and we're in a state where the urban areas are booming and the rural areas are suffering. I fully support the funding distribution.

The problem is, it's all going into big bypasses and dumb upgrades. We'd do a lot better spending it on improving the rail infrastructure across the state, to carry freight to the shiny new ports we're building on the coast.

As long as the damned Outer Loop is stuck in the same bottleneck as the EEC, I think I can live with it.