Transportation Secretary 'Disappoints' Local Road Officials

BY MATTHEW WINTER
SALISBURY POST

KANNAPOLIS - Back from a ''disappointing'' meeting with State Department of Transportation Secretary Norris Tolson, road officials with Cabarrus and Rowan counties still wonder what, if anything, can be done to avoid even worse gridlock on Interstate 85.

''We discovered that it's best for us to stick with our priorities as they are,'' said Kenneth Geathers, a Kannapolis City Council member and chairman of the Cabarrus-South Rowan Metropolitan Planning Organization's Advisory Committee.

''They didn't give us much hope'' that the widening of I-85 through Cabarrus County could be accelerated, he added.

Geathers and other local transportation planners met with Tolson Monday afternoon in Raleigh to discuss the state's draft Transportation Improvement Program, which schedules major road projects from 2000 to 2006. Many local officials have said recently that Kannapolis, Concord and South Rowan fared well in the TIP in comparison to other regions.

But concern is growing over the estimated 60,000 to 80,000 cars per day that the regional Concord Mills mall is expected to add to I-85.

The draft TIP includes $77 million for widening I-85 from Charlotte to N.C. 73 in Concord, which would encompass Concord Mills. But construction is not scheduled to begin until 2003. A $124-million project to widen I-85 from N.C. 73 in Concord to the U.S. 29 connector in Rowan County remains unfunded and unscheduled on the TIP plan.

Geathers and other local officials met with Tolson to ask if the state would be willing to postpone a widening project on N.C. 49 from Harrisburg to the Yadkin River in order to push up the I-85 project.

Tolson's answer constituted a ''cut-and-dried no,'' Geathers said.

The state is not willing to delay projects determined to be regionally important, as the widening of N.C. 49 has been labeled, Geathers said.

Geathers also apparently confirmed what he's been telling TIP critics for the past few weeks: The region would not gain anything by offering up the funded Westside Bypass - a planned loop around Kannapolis and Concord expected to cost roughly $84 million - as a swap for a wider I-85.

Some of the money earmarked for the bypass can't be used on the interstate, Geathers said.

''And if we use the Westside Bypass money, then we'll loose it, we'll never get it back,'' he said.

Furthermore, Geathers said, giving up local projects for the interstate - which he calls a state problem - would not shave much time off the widening project.

''He (Tolson) made it clear that even if we had the money right now (for the I-85 widening), it would still take at least a year and a half to start it,'' Geathers said. ''They may have some of the right of way, but they've still got to design it.''

''...It was very disappointing.''

Tolson did not return phone calls Monday or Tuesday. Transportation Department spokesman Bill Jones, who did not attend the meeting Monday, was not surprised local officials may feel disappointed.

''I feel sure we do not have enough money to do everything everyone wants us to do,'' Jones said.

Tolson apparently made one consolatory promise to the group. Tolson will put together a team of engineers to study computerized synchronization of traffic lights on U.S. 29 around Concord Mills, Geathers said.

Synchronizing traffic lights on U.S. 29 could help ease some of the pressure on I-85, he said.