Good news, bad news for Brunswick leg of bypass (Wilmington Star News)
Road project scheduled for completion by 2020
The entire Brunswick leg of the U.S. 17 Wilmington Bypass should be ready to drive on by 2020, according to an urban loop funding schedule released by the N.C. Department of Transportation on Thursday.
The draft plan, which prioritized 21 unfinished sections of urban loops across the state, ranked the Wilmington bypass high on the list. As such, it is expected to get built during the next 10 years, while projects in other parts of the state must wait longer.
According to the draft schedule, which could change over the next year after a lengthy public comment period, the remaining part of the bypass would be constructed in three phases between 2013 and 2020.
Construction of the stretch from U.S. 74/76 east of Malmo in Brunswick County to Cedar Hill Road would begin in 2012 or 2013 and wrap up around 2016. The segment from Cedar Hill Road to U.S. 421 in New Hanover County, including a bridge over the Cape Fear River, would begin in 2015 or 2016 and be completed around 2019. Finally, the paving of both stretches would start in 2018 or 2019 and wrap up around 2020, according to the draft schedule.
Alpesh Patel, with the DOT strategic planning office, said the paving was put at the end as a way to make the available funding go farther.
“What you see now is the best way to stretch every dollar in the loop fund,” he said. “We can’t do too much in any one year.”
But depending on available dollars in coming years, it’s possible that the stretch from U.S. 74/76 to Cedar Hill Road could be paved and opened to traffic by 2017, rather than waiting several years until the final stretch is complete, Patel said.
The DOT’s latest road funding plan is good and bad for motorists in Southeastern North Carolina. It’s good because the DOT included the bypass as a priority for the next decade, while important urban loop projects in other parts of the state, such as Winston-Salem, will have to wait longer.
Other cities with projects on the 10-year schedule are Charlotte, Fayetteville, Durham, Greensboro and Greenville.
But it still will be another decade before the entire bypass is complete, while motorists have been clamoring for congestion relief on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and other roadways between New Hanover and Brunswick counties, especially at rush hour. The new schedule appears to push the final completion date back at least a couple of years compared to the DOT’s existing plan.
But DOT officials say the new schedule is more realistic from a funding standpoint, and that there’s a strong likelihood that the bypass will be ready for traffic by 2020.
Under the old DOT process, projects were completed on time and budget only about half of the time. But Greer Beaty, a DOT spokeswoman, said the department is now striving to complete 90 percent or more of its projects on time.
“We’re really committed to meeting these deadlines,” she said.
Many regions won’t be pleased with the new schedule, but Beaty said it’s the best the DOT could do with available money. To build all loop projects today would cost about $8 billion, while the state has just $150 million this year for that work, she said.
“Obviously, we can’t build them all at one time,” Beaty said. “We just don’t have enough money.”
Mike Kozlosky, executive director of the Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization, a regional transportation planning agency, said the new schedule shows the DOT is committed to funding the Cape Fear’s top transportation priority.
“It’s going to help to alleviate congestion throughout the region,” he said. “I certainly believe that this is good news for the Wilmington region.”
Eventually, the bypass will stretch from U.S. 17 in northern New Hanover County to U.S. 17 in Brunswick County.
The stretch of the Brunswick leg of the bypass from U.S. 17 to U.S. 74/76 in Brunswick County is currently under design.
Jackson Provost, DOT division construction engineer, said Barnhill Contracting Co. has submitted initial roadway and drainage designs for the project. Grading work should begin this winter or early next spring, and that stretch is expected to be completed some time in 2013, Provost said.
Meanwhile, unless other funding is identified, the extension of Independence Boulevard from Randall Parkway to the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, another top priority of local transportation planners, will have to wait. The draft DOT schedule calls for right of way acquisition for that project to begin in 2020, with construction after that.
Patrick Gannon: (919) 836-0889
On Twitter.com: @StarNewsPat
By Patrick Gannon
Patrick.Gannon@StarNewsOnline.com
Published: Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 3:13 p.m.
