People who live or own property along the path of the proposed Winston-Salem beltway poured out a decade of frustration yesterday in response to news that the state has no plans to start work on the road over the next 10 years.
More than 100 people sat under a shelter next to a Sedge Garden swimming pool to discuss the beltway with state and local officials.
A draft priority list of urban loops obtained by the Winston-Salem Journal on Wednesday lists the eastern leg of the Winston-Salem beltway in last place among 21 projects statewide. The western leg -- which is actually a lower priority to local officials -- ranked a little higher, but no portion of the beltway is in the state's draft plans for construction or right-of-way purchase through 2020.
The meeting was organized by a citizens group called Northern Beltway NOW, which is pushing the state to move forward with the project and buy out landowners in the path of the road.
"We have been going through this since the early 1990s," said Keith Anderson, who with his wife, Melody, complained to officials about the delay.
"At first I was against it, and then I was for it because it seemed like it was going to be built anyway. Give me a check from when you locked up my land."
Jim Trogdon, the chief operating officer and second in command at the N.C. Department of Transportation, came to the meeting and did most of the talking for the state.
"We have to have a process that is fair and transparent," Trogdon said.
He stressed that although the state has a draft list of projects, it won't be finalized until next summer and after the state gets a lot of public input.
He promised an aggressive response to situations where people need to sell property because of personal hardship.
Trogdon had an uphill climb with some in the audience.
"What the state and DOT are doing to these people is criminal," Pfafftown resident Pam Reynolds said.
"You have jerked these people around. We are at the end of our rope."
Opponents of the beltway slapped state and federal officials with a lawsuit in 1999, just as work was ready to start on the western leg.
Highway officials stopped buying land and agreed to do a new environmental review incorporating the eastern part of the loop.
When that work was done in 2008, opponents filed a second suit and stopped the project again.
A judge dismissed both lawsuits in May, but state officials now say there isn't enough money to pay for all the urban loops the state needs.
Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines told the crowd that the priority formula is flawed because it divides benefits by the total cost of the project to come up with a ranking.
He said that calculation puts Winston-Salem at the bottom because no portion of the beltway has been built.
But Trogdon said in an interview yesterday afternoon that the formula treats all unbuilt loops across the state in the same way.
Local officials and people in the audience were saying yesterday that the long delay caused by the lawsuit creates an obligation for the state to revise its approach.
"There is a moral issue here," said Larry Williams, the mayor of Rural Hall and the chairman of the transportation advisory committee for the Winston-Salem metropolitan area.
"The state of North Carolina owes these people."
wyoung@wsjournal.com
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