The N.C. Department of Transportation has finalized its new seven-year road-building plan. And for many communities, the plan puts the brakes on anticipated new road projects.

Federal rules require state transportation departments to regularly compile master planning documents. North Carolina’s master plan is called the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and is updated every two years, with the N.C. Board of Transportation approving the latest version in early July.

North Carolina law provides that most road funds are allocated by funding formulas to regions, with input from local official helping to determine which specific projects are built using the limited funds available. Notable exceptions are urban loop funds, for which designated highway projects from across the state directly compete against each other for available funds.

In 1989, the General Assembly raised the gasoline taxes and various fees, with the extra revenue going to the newly created Highway Trust Fund. Exactly 25.05 percent of available Trust Fund revenue would go to build interstate highway-quality outer loops, or portions there of, around seven cities: Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem. In 2003 and 2004, the legislature expanded the list of projects eligible for urban-loop funding, adding loops in Greenville, Fayetteville, and Gastonia while also increasing the scope of all of original projects except for Asheville.

The 2006 iteration of the TIP is the first to reflect these additional urban loop projects. Yet even before the new projects were added, the NCDOT faced a daunting list of to-dos with limited resources. To make matters worse, some projects have become much more expensive than when originally envisioned while the Trust Fund has been raided to help close the state budget deficit.

“We have $2 in projects for every $1 we have coming in,” Calvin Leggett, the NCDOT’s chief planner, said to The Charlotte Observer.

And that means some communities won’t see their road projects built as fast as they’d hoped — or as was promised even as recently as two years ago.

Greensboro provides a good example. Under the previous state master plan, almost all of the 42-mile-long Greensboro outer loop would be completed or under construction by 2010. That’s not so under the new TIP; work on the eastern third of the highway is not slated to begin until after 2012.

Winston-Salem fared little better between 2004 and 2006. Urban loop money is to be used to build the 27.4-mile Northern Loop between Interstate 40 in western Forsyth County and U.S. 311in the eastern part of the county. The 2004 TIP projected starting work on the western portion of the road, between I-40 and U.S. 52 in 2006, and the eastern portion, between U.S. 52 and U.S. 311, in 2010. Work on the eastern portion will still begin in 2010; the western portion, however, has been delayed indefinitely with no money for construction budgeted for at least the next seven years.

The status of the other projects:

• ASHEVILLE: Though it was one of the original projects, the NCDOT has only spent $4.1 million so far on the design and planning of the 3.5-mile, $325 million project. The scope of the road, eight lanes, has proven to be controversial locally. The 2006 TIP would see land acquisition begin in 2008 and construction start in 2012, a four-year delay versus the 2003 TIP.

• CHARLOTTE: The longest and most expensive of the loops, the Charlotte Outer Belt (I-485) will be more than 90 percent complete by late 2007 — and still about eight years from completion. Work on the last five-mile stretch now isn’t scheduled to begin until 2012, four years later than previously planned. The new TIP also includes funds to begin widening a badly congested portion of I-485 in southern Mecklenburg County in 2012 — the road was originally built in the early 1990s with too few lanes — a project that the Assembly approved for urban-loop funding only last year.

• FAYETTEVILLE: In 2003, the Assembly added the Fayetteville Western Outer Loop to the urban loop project list. The move will increase road building in Fayetteville area in the long run, as money for the expensive project will not come out the area’s regular allotment of funds. The highway was gotten substantially more expensive in the past two years, with $340 million of land acquisition and construction to occur after 2012.

• RALEIGH: Another of the larger projects, Raleigh’s outer loop is also known as I-540. Thirty-one miles of the highway will be complete by 2007, with no additional road building planned until 2012. The previous TIP had penciled in funds to begin work on a sector in western Wake County in 2008.

• WILMINGTON: The port city’s “loop” was originally called the U.S. 17 Bypass and has since been designated I-140. The northern portion of the road, from U.S. 17 to I-40 and then on to U.S. 421, should be finished by 2007. The next phase, extending the road south to meet up with U.S. 17 again, is an environmentally challenging project. As in the 2004 TIP, work is to begin in 2009 though the estimated cost of the project has increased by $90 million in the last two years.

• GREENVILLE: Another recent addition to the loop-approved project list is the 7.8-mile Greenville Southwest Bypass. Though the road is currently being designed and land purchase is planned for 2009, no money is available through 2012 to build the bypass. The 2004 TIP had land purchases beginning in 2006 from non-trust fund sources.

•DURHAM: Local leaders rejected the idea of a outer belt per se, opting instead to upgrade a number of existing streets while adding a limited amount of new roads built to below-interstate standard. The project remains largely undefined, with no funds budgeted except for $20 million for land purchase and mitigation for the 2.5-mile East End Connector project.

• GASTONIA: A 7.5-mile, $100.9 million stretch of the Garden Parkway, between I-85 and U.S. 321 was included in this year’s TIP. The project receives no funds, though, through 2012. An additional 21.5 miles of the parkway, though nominally eligible for urban-loop funding, would be built as a toll road without the use of loop money.

The TIP construction schedules presume that all needed funds and permits can be obtained in a timely manner, which has not always been the case in the past.
To download a full copy of the 2006 TIP, go online to www.ncdot.org/planning/development/TIP/TIP/.

Michael Lowrey is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.