Skip to main content

I-485 Hot Potato - Who wants it?


It's our favorite subject at the blog (ok so it's mine - Bob takes care of the I-73 debacle in Greensboro) - but it's another round of the Interstate 485 hot potato game!

This time folks at the Mecklenburg-Union Metropolitan Planning Organization (MUMPO) have basically told Governor Bev Perdue that they don't care about her campaign promise to complete the Interstate 485 loop, the plan to widen and upgrade Independence Blvd. will move forward.

This happened when again the NCDOT said that if the Independence project goes first, I-485 will be delayed.

MUMPO members would have none of that.

"I don't know why we should bite on this false choice,” said Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess. “We need to finish Independence as we've been planning for 30 years."

Burgess compared the pressure from Raleigh is similar to "...asking a parent to choose their favorite child."

Weddington Mayor Nancy Anderson would have none of it either, "
This is not an option really, just kind of a way to confuse the issue and cover up for the governor's promises that are being broken.”

With what appears to be deaf ears in Raleigh from the governor on the issue, and with no response from Raleigh from the governor's office from letters that MUMPO chairman Lee Myers on offering suggestions to build both I-485 and widen Independence by 2013, MUMPO appears to be standing firm on their priorities list. The list has the widening of Independence Blvd. as their top transportation priority in the region.

MUMPO will formally announce their decision in October.

Story Links:
Mayor: Governor should apologize for broken promises ---WCNC-TV w/video
I-485 completion would put Independence project on hold ---News 14 Carolina w/video

Commentary:

There really isn't much more to say, but the silence from Governor Perdue's office is deafening. All we are hearing from the NCDOT is the same story. If you decide to improve Independence, 485 will have to wait until at least 2015.

Is it me or is the NCDOT doing the dirty work for Aunt Bev?

Perdue, who made the promise during her successful 2008 run for Governor, has been silent throughout this issue the past few months. She made the promise in Charlotte while running against Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. And surprisingly - to some but not myself - it certainly appears that either folks in Raleigh are ignorant to the issue, aren't willing to work through a solution to get both projects completed, or just really don't care.

Considering the Tar Heel state's history of West vs. East in politics - and the ongoing Charlotte vs. Raleigh squabbles, I have a feeling that the latter of the three is the most accurate.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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