Where To Now?: Road plan still on despite Dell closing

When officials from Dell Inc. looked over a site in southeastern Forsyth County for a computer-assembly plant in 2004, they were worried about highway access.

They wanted Union Cross Road widened from two to four lanes. They wanted a separate access road for trucks entering or leaving the plant.

The N.C. Department of Transportation widened Union Cross from two to three lanes, and built Dell Boulevard to give the company access for its trucks. The DOT widened Temple School Road to four lanes in between Union Cross Road and the Dell plant.

Highway officials also developed a now $53 million plan to make Union Cross Road a divided highway, with four lanes between Interstate 40 and Wallburg Road, and six lanes from I-40 north to Sedge Garden Road.

Even though Dell said earlier this month that it will close the plant early next year, DOT officials say they are moving ahead with the Union Cross Road plans. They say that present and future traffic needs justify the expense.

"This project is scheduled to be completed in 2015," said Pat Ivey, the DOT division engineer for the highway division that includes Forsyth County. "Certainly by that point the economy will be picking up again, and we feel that the four lanes will be needed by that time. The project was justified because of existing traffic and proposed developments. We do not see that changing."

The estimated cost of the widening includes $43 million for construction and $10 million to buy right of way, a process that is taking place now. Ivey said that the state plans to award construction contracts in December 2011.

The state's plan to stick with the widening is drawing fire from David Hartgen of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative organization in Raleigh that sees part of its mission as rooting out wasteful government spending.

"The modeling for these projects is circular," said Hartgen, a professor emeritus at UNC Charlotte. "The model assumes the development and the development is used to see if the road is needed."

Hartgen said he hasn't seen or studied the road and thus can't say whether it should be widened. But he did say he believes that the need for the widening should be reviewed again.

What the state lacks, he said, is a way to compare projects with each other to see which is needed most, and a way to deal with 180-degree turns, such as Dell closing its Forsyth County plant.

Ivey said that state transportation officials are working on a better way to establish priorities for road needs.

Hartgen and state officials agree that 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles a day is the range in which highway planners should consider a four-lane option. By that measure, Union Cross Road would qualify for the widening project.

The last traffic counts on the affected section of Union Cross Road, done in 2007 when Dell was at its peak employment, showed a top count of 19,000 vehicles a day near Glenn High School. Counts were from 13,000 to 16,000 vehicles a day along other sections.

Most of those 2007 counts are higher than ones recorded on Coliseum Drive, a four-lane roadway that carried 12,000 to 13,000 vehicles a day in 2007.

Ivey said that traffic creates gridlock every day at the area where I-40 and Union Cross Road intersect, just north of Glenn High.

"If you are at that interchange any afternoon, you know something needs to be done," he said.

A DOT study on widening Union Cross Road predicted that in 2030, traffic counts at different points would range from 23,100 to 40,700.

But the same study found that with three lanes in service, Union Cross Road in 2006 had "an acceptable level of service" as defined by the DOT. The study predicted major gridlock by 2030 without the widening.

Ivey compared the Union Cross project to one being done on Lewisville-Clemmons Road, where widening to four lanes is nearly done. The daily count on Lewisville-Clemmons Road in 2007 ranged from 17,000 to 22,000 cars between Peace Haven Road and U.S. 421.

Apart from Dell, several retail and residential developments on the north and south side of I-40 are stalled. In 2005 plans were announced for a 200-house development on the north side of I-40, with 243,000 square feet of retail space. That land is empty.

Neither Caleb's Creek nor Abbott's Plantation -- two large housing developments planned to the east of Union Cross Road -- have materialized.

Across from Glenn High, weeds grow in a field where a sign advertises a shopping center planned in 2005. Ray Krawiec, whose companies own that land, said that uncertainty over the road and the bad economy have stalled his project. He said that widening Union Cross Road to four lanes might help, but he added that he couldn't say for sure if it is still needed.

"There certainly is a need for road improvements out there and there has been forever," he said. "If they announced they never were going to built it, it might help us, too, because we have companies concerned about being torn up."

Bob Leak, the president of Winston-Salem Business Inc., said that the widening of Union Cross Road is still needed because of other development plans, including one by Johnson Development Associates Inc. to build industrial buildings in the Union Cross Business Park and on 100 acres beside the Dell plant.

"Transportation is one of our key selling points," Leak said. "Union Cross Road being four lanes between I-40 and U.S. 311 allows traffic to get east and west and north and south easily."

The mayor of Winston-Salem, Allen Joines, said that the Dell property, before Dell came, was assembled as an industrial site because of FedEx's decision to put a large distribution hub in Greensboro.

"That is a very crucial site, in my opinion, and one of the best development sites that Winston-Salem has," Joines said. "The more we can make that site advantageous to our community, the better off we will be."

But Ina Jean Stephens, who lives on Union Cross Road almost directly across from Temple School Road, said that traffic on the road isn't all that bad where she lives.

"There is traffic out here but never a backup or anything," Stephens said.

"When Dell comes out about 4:30 in the afternoon, it is busy for 20 or 30 minutes, and then it is gone. There is no development because of the economy. It might develop out here, but I don't think it will anytime soon."

wyoung@wsjournal.com


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