Longtime Salisbury Realtor and developer Leo Wallace moved quietly within the crowd Tuesday evening, looking for any city, county or state official who would listen.
“It’s a mistake,” he said, referring to a controversial plan for a median-divided U.S. 70 (Statesville Boulevard) from the Salisbury Mall to Kepley Road. “... And I’m just as much concerned about the safety as anyone.”
Around him, scores of people walked with homemade signs that echoed some of Wallace’s sentiments.
The placards carried words such as Be Fair, No Median, You are Playing with Our Lives, Beauty or Safety? and No U-Turns.
From a business point of view, Wallace thinks would a median would deny good access to the shopping area that includes Office Land, Dairy Queen, Lil’ Caesar’s, Dollar General and other businesses in a strip development near the mall.
The proposed right-of-way isn’t wide enough to give ambulances, fire trucks or even larger sport utility vehicles room to make the U-turns that a median will require, Wallace contended. That becomes a real problem, he added, when cars are coming toward you at high speeds.
As for access, Wallace mused that, with a median-divided highway, the best way to get to Office Land might be “entrance by helicopter.” The current Department of Transportation plan puts the nearest access points for westbound motorists at a traffic light serving the mall and Salisbury Marketplace and at Lash Drive beyond the Wallace development.
Wallace said he essentially has 26 acres that the median will block off.
The N.C. Department of Transportation held a three-hour, drop-in public meeting Tuesday night at Hurley Elementary School to address individual concerns about the 3.8-mile widening project, which is expected to begin next fall.
It is one of five phases of a plan to widen U.S. 70 from two to four lanes between Salisbury and Statesville, but the project’s plan for a median, especially in this section closest to Salisbury, has drawn tremendous fire.
Wallace and Jack Cauble, a U.S. 70 property owner and resident, have led much of the opposition to the median, favoring instead a five-lane highway with a center left-turn lane.
Median opponents have submitted petitions with more than 2,000 signatures, while also contacting public officials through letters, e-mails, telephone calls and personal meetings.
“I don’t like anything about it, to tell you the truth,” said Jean Bradley, who lives on Hurley School Road near U.S. 70.
But it became apparent to many of the people attending Tuesday’s meeting that they would not change state officials’ minds.
“The decision on the median has been made,” said Patrick Ivey, division engineer from Winston-Salem.
Ivey said the U.S. 70 widening project probably represents one of his divisions most controversial projects ever — understandable, he said, because it introduces a new philosophy with safety and efficiency as its main concerns.
He predicted that motorists will like it once the widened road and median are finished.
Even if Salisbury City Council, which earlier endorsed the median, reversed itself and withdrew support, the state still would propose the median, Ivey said. Deciding to eliminate the median would delay the widening project two to three years, Ivey estimated.
Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz said she doubts state officials will back off their decision to use a median.
“I understand people have legitimate concerns,” Kluttz said. “We have heard them by the hundreds. What we’re hoping is there’s still room for improvement.”
Kluttz hoped that the Department of Transportation could return after Tuesday night’s session with an acceptable plan that allowed more median cuts. But she rejected the idea that beautification is the driving consideration behind council’s past support for the median.
“Whatever’s the safest is most important to us,” she said. She especially worries about older drivers attempting to take a left turn out of a business or driveway onto a busy five-lane U.S. 70.
“That scares me,” Kluttz said.
N.C. Transportation Board member Margaret Kluttz of Salisbury said state officials favored the median design because of safety. As traffic continues to increase on U.S. 70, taxpayers also will get a better value for their tax dollars from a median, she said.
Traffic projections for U.S. 70 suggest that a five-lane design without a median will be obsolete within 10 to 20 years, and trying to retrofit a median at that point would be expensive, according to Margaret Kluttz and Ivey.
Margaret Kluttz said the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting was to fine-tune the project’s design by trying to accommodate many inconveniences without compromising the integrity of the median.
State staffers met with people next to maps along the walls. Elsewhere in the school multi-purpose room, individuals spoke with Salisbury City Council members, Rowan County commissioners, Margaret Kluttz and fellow Transportation Board member Nancy Dunn.
Opponents routinely raise questions about why the Statesville end of the U.S. 70 widening and the heavily traveled Jake Alexander Boulevard in Salisbury have a five-lane design with a center left-turn lane. These roads don’t have a median but probably have the same or heavier volumes of traffic.
Ivey said the Department of Transportation’s road design philosophy didn’t change until two to three years ago.
Jake Alexander Boulevard was designed many years before that, he said. The Statesville widening on U.S. 70 also “was on the books to go” with the five-lane design.
“It didn’t make sense to retrofit those projects,” Ivey said.
After those particular highway designs were in place, state officials determined that the common five-lane sections were “not a cure-all,” Ivey said. During the debate about the Salisbury project, the Department of Transportation has cited in-state and out-of-state studies that suggest median-divided highways are safer than center-turn-lane roads.
Steve Blount, chairman of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, said he has yet to see a good study that compared the safety of left turns on five-lane roads to the safety of making a similar number of U-turns. A year ago, county commissioners asked for such a study, while withholding support for a median.
“I’m still waiting on that study,” Blount said. Until then, he remains opposed to a median and favors the side of business and convenience.
Joe Bost, owner of Aaron Sales and Leasing near Office Land, said Salisbury City Council’s support of the median put the state in a position to defend what really is a beautification project.
“I really don’t buy the safety argument,” Bost said.
Bost added that he chose his business property because of location and access. A median will cause problems for his two delivery trucks and the one tractor-trailer that comes to his store each week, Bost said.
In four years at his location without a U.S. 70 median, Bost said he has never seen an accident.
Ken Schwendinger, owner of Shed Time, said the road widening design has changed in front of his business, and it now will take an additional 60 feet of his property, removing his lower display area.
“I’m ready to cry, ready to die,” said Schwendinger, who based his business plans on earlier Department of Transportation designs.
His Shed Time property displays storage buildings, carports, gazebos and playhouses.
A median will force all the traffic leaving his business, including trucks carrying storage buildings, to travel toward Statesville and, in essence, force commerce away from Salisbury, Schwendinger said.
As did others, Schwendinger tried to make his case to state officials Tuesday night.
“I get answers,” he said, “but it’s never an answer that makes sense.”
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com
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