Skip to main content

Meet the New NCDOT, Same as the Old NCDOT?

My apologies to The Who.

This month's NCDOT Employee Newsletter features a column by Ted Vaden, Deputy Secretary for Internal and External Affairs, the agency's director of communication. The article (available here:
http://www.ncdot.gov/_templates/download/external.html?pdf=http%3A//www.ncdot.org/download/newsroom/Newsletter.pdf starting on page 2) states that NCDOT is one of the best transportation departments in the country but that past management has not been able to get that news out very well by largely just reacting to reports of NCDOT making mistakes after the fact. The new agency management says it's committed to better, more accurate communications, and being more proactive in pushing NCDOT's positive news. The article indicates that the NCDOT Secretary, as part of this new proactive process, has been traveling around the state to public forums in an attempt to change the public perception about NCDOT that it is better at wasting taxpayer's dollars than building roads.

Well,
funny they should be touting better communication this month. Seems NCDOT, over the next two weekends, is going to be closing what is once again part of Interstate 40, and Business 85, inside the Greensboro Urban Loop to perform a repaving project, one direction closed each weekend. They sent out a news release to the Greensboro paper and included a map of the detours to get around the construction. One problem, both the release and map, (you can access the map by pasting in the link here:
http://mm.news-record.com/drupal//files/documents/traffic_detours_may_2009.pdf
) refer to the old route alignments which NCDOT, in another release a couple weeks ago, stated they were starting the process of changing. As seen in the previous post, almost all the Business 40 signs have been replaced by Interstate 40 along I-40's original alignment. But the release and map refer and show Business 40 through Greensboro and tell how to bypass it using I-40/I-73, I-40/85, etc. which, technically where the signs haven't been changed, do not exist. The map includes I-40 exit numbers both on the old and new alignments as well as Business 40 exit numbers along I-40 west of Business 85, of which only the exit gore sign numbers were ever changed.The Greensboro N&R dutifully put up the text and map on their website. They eventually redid their text when a reader (not me) commented about the paper using the old route designations and pointing out they had an article the week or so before listing all the route and exit number changes. The paper apologized, saying they hadn't checked the news release close enough before publishing it. (I eventually added a comment myself in response to a question in a previous comment).

Commentary:
Hmm, it still appears that NCDOT's right hand still doesn't know what it's left hand is doing. This occurred within the same department, public relations, to boot. Wasn't this going to change under the new administration? Let's hope they have better luck laying a new surface on I-40 in Greensboro than in Durham. You cannot dictate policy changes from above and have them automatically filter down throughout an entire organization. Communication at NCDOT has been a problem for a long time. Saying you're going to be more accurate doesn't suddenly mean that you'll have the same employees double-check
ing press releases for mistakes. (I hope this release was done by a different person at least, not that that's a real excuse.) It would also be helpful for NCDOT if the media would do its job and check facts before publishing something. By apparently assuming, like the Greensboro N&R did, that this release should have no problems with it, it only compounded the original mistake. It should not take a reader to inform a paper that the facts of an article are wrong. Don't any of the paper's employees, or NCDOT's for that matter, drive I-40?

Maybe the first stop for Secretary Conti on his better communications road trip should have been to the NCDOT press office.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old US Route 60/70 through Hell (Chuckwall Valley Road and Ragsdale Road)

Back in 2016 I explored some of the derelict roadways of the Sonoran Desert of Riverside County which were part of US Route 60/70; Chuckwalla Valley Road and Ragsdale Road. US 60 and US 70 were not part of the original run of US Routes in California.  According to USends.com US 60 was extended into California by 1932.  US 60 doesn't appear on the California State Highway Map until the 1934 edition. USends.com on US 60 endpoints 1934 State Highway Map Conversely US 70 was extended into California by 1934, it first appears on the 1936 State Highway Map. USends.com on US 70 endpoints 1936 State Highway Map When US 60 and US 70 were extended into California they both utilized what was Legislative Route Number 64 from the Arizona State Line west to Coachella Valley.  LRN 64 was part of the 1919 Third State Highway Bond Act routes.  The original definition of LRN 64 routed between Mecca in Blythe and wasn't extended to the Arizona State Line until 1931 acc...

Hawaii Route 8930

Hawaii Route 8930 is a 2.5-mile State Highway on the Island of O'hau.  Hawaii Route 8930 is aligned over Kualakai Parkway over the course of its entire alignment south from Interstate H-1 to Kapolei Parkway.  Hawaii Route 8930 is one of the newest Hawaii Routes only having been completed during 2010.   This page is part of the Gribblenation O'ahu Highways page.  All Gribblenation and Roadwaywiz media related to the highway system of O'ahu can be found at the link below: https://www.gribblenation.org/p/gribblenation-oahu-highways-page.html Part 1; the history of Hawaii Route 8930 The history of Hawaii Route 8930 is brief given it is a modern facility.  Hawaii Route 8930 and what was known as "North-South Road" were built to facilitate the developing areas of Kapolei on western O'ahu.  According to hawaiihighways.com the first stage of Hawaii Route 8930 was completed from Kapolei Parkway north to Farrington Highway as a four-lane highway during November...

Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road

Madera County Road 607 is an approximately seven-mile rural unsurfaced highway which spans from Road 600 near Raymond west to Road 29.   Road 607 west from Raymond Road Cemetery (established in 1905) is part of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road corridor surveyed in 1853. The corridor lies in the gap between Fresno Crossing at the Fresno River west to Newton's Crossing at the Chowchilla River. The Buchanan Copper Mine would be along what is now Road 607 in the namesake Buchanan Hollow during July 1863. The Buchanan Mine is thought to have once had a population of between 1,000-1,500 residents by the early 1870s. Copper prices would decline in the decade after the Civil War and much of the activity at Buchanan shifted towards cattle ranching. The last businesses in the community would shutter during World War II and it is now a true ghost town. Part 1; the history of Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road What is now Road 607 was a component of the larger Sto...