Skip to main content

EPA: Gaston Parkway - Not a good idea

In reviewing the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Garden Parkway, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has significant concerns on the environmental impact of the toll road. It also questions in how much consideration various alternative were given.

The DEIS was released in May.

The EPA's concerns are many:
  • "Very Significant" Impact to nearby waterways, and that mitigation for these impacts have not been thoroughly provided and explained
  • More consideration to other transportation methods - including light rail
  • The time savings for commuters range from 0-5 minutes for more than half the project. They fail to see a benefit to commuters in Gaston County and in the study area.
  • Other socio-economic factors - from minority relocation and the impact on poor residents.
The NCTA has received similar responses from the Southern Environmental Law Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

The Turnpike Authority intends to answer the EPA's and all concerns when they release the Final EIS in the spring of 2010.

Story: EPA cites numerous problems with Garden Parkway ---Gaston Gazette

Commentary:
Immediately, opponents of the Garden Parkway pointed to the EPA's response as more reason why the Parkway shouldn't be built.
“It confirms what we believed — that there are serious problems with the project,” said Bill Toole, spokesman for a group opposing the toll road. “Just as we’ve been saying, the EPA is saying there are far better alternatives that need much more careful thought before they get rejected.”
And honestly, they're right. The road really does not significantly cut commute times for most residents in Gaston County - and the comments from the EPA in regards to the DEIS - show a lot of questions on the environmental impact on the highway.

This just adds to the controversy over the selection of the Gaston Parkway Preferred Alternative by the Turnpike Authority. Many residents have questioned the influence of State Senator David Hoyle (D-Gastonia) on the route. Hoyle, who has been a strong supporter of the Parkway, and his family own about 327 acres of land near one of the proposed exits of the Garden Parkway.

The N.C. Legislative Ethics Committee has cleared Hoyle in any wrong doing in a September 2008 advisory letter.

Former State Senator Robert Pittinger also owns land near the proposed Parkway; however, he abstained from voting on any legislation regarding the road.

Former State Senator, Robert Pittinger, also owns land near the Parkway, but he did not vote on any bills that included the Garden Parkway.

In addition, not all of the municipalities impacted along the route have signed on to the NCTA's preferred alternative. The Town of Belmont supports another routing of the highway.

Back to the EPA, this letter seems to have stung the proponents of the road. The concerns of the EPA has amplified the objections to the route and puts the burden on the NCTA to ease and explain their solutions to the numerous concerns of the EPA and other agencies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po