Local News
Email
Print
Local Loop Passed Over? Charlotte gets money; will it be available to build our beltway?
Journal Photo by Walt Unks
A ramp taking motorists from U.S. 52 to N.C. 66 is a path that the Northern Beltway would follow.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: November 15, 2009
State highway officials say that Gov. Bev Perdue's recently announced plan to finish the last leg of the Charlotte beltway will not take any money from Winston-Salem's beltway.
But local officials are wondering whether they can count on that promise.
And they plan to make sure that state officials know that the Winston-Salem beltway is badly needed.
Perdue said Monday that the state would finance in part the last five miles of Charlotte's Interstate 485 Outer Loop with money loaned to the state by the contractors who build the road -- the first time that has been tried in North Carolina.
The $540 million project would be paid for with $50 million from the contractor, but it would also need $240 million from the state's highway trust fund and $250 million in proceeds from bonds that will be paid back from future federal grants.
"We are obviously concerned that this might divert money from our beltway, although the governor has said that it will not impact other loops," said Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines.
"Our feeling is that all these other beltways have gotten started using moneys that were supposed to be for the Winston-Salem loop."
The Charlotte project is actually three projects in one: finishing the five-mile segment of loop between Interstate 77 and Interstate 85 ($185 million); building an interchange between I-485 and I-85 ($155 million); and widening I-85 into Cabarrus County ($200 million).
State officials think they can shave $50 million to $100 million off the cost of the work with the new "design/build/finance" approach, taking advantage of low construction costs in the current economic slowdown.
In Winston-Salem, the proposed beltway is still held up by a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and the N.C. Department of Transportation by two citizens groups who say that environmental studies relating to the road were flawed.
A judge in federal District Court could rule on the case later this year, Joines said, although the court is not held to any timetable.
Some advocates of building the beltway held an organizational meeting last night.
A.C. Reynolds, whose business is in the path of the proposed Winston-Salem loop, said that about 23 people turned out and more meetings are planned.
The group calls itself Northern Beltway Now, Reynolds said. Reynolds is frustrated because he can neither expand his business nor sell the property because of the stalled road construction.
Ralph Womble, who represents the county on the state board of transportation, said it is too soon to say whether the approach the state is taking in Charlotte would work here.
"We have to get through the lawsuit first and foremost," Womble said.
Pat Ivey, the DOT district engineer for the area that includes Forsyth, said that he has been told "from Day One that when we got through with the lawsuit, the money would be there" for a Winston-Salem beltway. The state money for the Charlotte project is coming from the same pot of money that would be used here.
Greer Beaty, a spokesman for the state DOT, said that the Charlotte funding formula is one example of how the state is trying to look at new ways to build roads in a time of tight budgets.
The state is in the process of putting together a new plan for improving transportation, as it does on a periodic basis. What's new to that process will be a prioritization method that is supposed to put everyone on notice about which roads need doing first.
wyoung@wsjournal.com | 727-7369
Email
Print
