Will Charlotte stop complaining about I-485 now?

Both the Triad and Triangle Business Journals last week published stories on the amount of funding for highway loops throughout the state of North Carolina. And when you look at the details, Charlotte doesn't have much to complain about.

In fact, Charlotte has the greatest percentage of their loop miles completed or funded within the state. At 93 %, or 68.4 of nearly 74 miles proposed, Charlotte is well ahead of other cities like Raleigh or Greensboro and miles beyond Durham, Asheville, or Winston-Salem which show zero miles funded/completed. (See figure at right.)

For years, residents and political leaders in the Charlotte area has complained about the lack of urgency in Raleigh to complete their loop. The reality of the chart shows that Charlotte is way ahead of any city within the state.

The root cause for the infighting between North Carolina cities for limited highway funds can be traced to the variety of funding mechanisms for transportation projects within the state. The Highway Trust Fund - which was created in 1989 - was slated to build loop projects throughout the state. Sadly over the years, Governor's and the State Assembly have raided the trust fund to balance the state budget. These raids have pushed back the funding availability on a number of projects that were ready to go over the past ten years.

Also, the state's 'equity formula', also enacted into law by the General Assembly in 1989, has been perhaps the biggest influence on how and more importantly where highway funds get spent. The equity formula requires - "that State Transportation Improvement Program funds be distributed equitably among regions of the state. Monetary distribution is based 50 percent on the population of a region, 25 percent on the number of miles of intrastate highways left to complete in a region and the remaining 25 percent is distributed equally among the regions for the STIP".

Though Urban Loop's are exempt from the formula, money for loop can come from these funds. In recent years, growth in the metropolitan areas has far outpaced rural areas; however, the equity formula has required that money be spent on rural highway projects. Leaders in Charlotte, and other cities, have complained about how rural projects are first in line - while needed projects in their city get kicked further down the line.

NC Secretary of Transportation Gene Conti has begun to shift the focus of NCDOT on needs vs. the various funding formulas. The NCDOT has begun to work on designing a new work stream that will focus on projects that can and will be done in a five year period vs. shuffling around projects on and off the funding lists.

Will that stop Charlotte residents complaining about the completion of Interstate 485? Of course not. The chart and accompanying stories show how competitive it is within North Carolina for limited highway funds. And that's something that won't change - no matter what the funding formula(s) or sources are.

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Huey P. Long Bridge (New Orleans, LA)

Located on the lower Mississippi River a few miles west of New Orleans, the Huey P. Long Bridge is an enormous steel truss bridge that carries both road and rail traffic on an old-time structure that is a fascinating example of a bridge that has evolved in recent years to meet the traffic and safety demands of modern times. While officially located in suburban Jefferson Parish near the unincorporated community of Bridge City, this bridge’s location is most often associated with New Orleans, given that it’s the largest and most recognizable incorporated population center in the nearby vicinity. For this reason, this blog article considers the bridge’s location to be in New Orleans, even though this isn’t 100% geographically correct. Completed in 1935 as the first bridge across the Mississippi River in Louisiana and the first to be built in the New Orleans area, this bridge is one of two bridges on the Mississippi named for Huey P. Long, a Louisiana politician who served as the 40th Gove

Anonymous said…

Adam, do you have any idea if the equity formula will be modified or dropped in the next few years? With rural areas losing clout in the state government to the more urbanized Piedmont, and the larger number of discontented voters voicing their concerns in the Piedmont, it seems likely to me that NCDOT and/or the General Assembly will want to alter this some way soon. That would be a shame for our rural areas of course, particularly in the east and west, but as an urbanite in the Triangle, I frankly think it needs to happen, as right now the major metropolitan areas just are not getting what they need if they want to continue to boom transportation-wise this century. Your thoughts?

9:15 AM

Adam said…

Great comment! I had to make a blog post about it!

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-thoughts-on-nc-transportation-equity.html

4:58 PM