By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
RALEIGH ó President-elect Barack Obama has heard about the need to replace the Interstate 85 bridge over the Yadkin River.
If he doesn’t remember, Gov. Bev Perdue arrived in Washington today to remind his transition team that the bridge’s replacement is among the transportation infrastructure, human resource and job needs in North Carolina that could be helped by a federal stimulus package.
“I had the opportunity to talk with him when we were in Philadelphia,” Perdue said Tuesday after meeting with officials from Rowan, Davidson and Cabarrus counties about the bridge, “and we talked about my priority projects.
“At that point in time, I believe he had already been talked to by perhaps (N.C. House) Speaker (Joe) Hackney. He knew the project, and perhaps he had ridden that road himself when he was here. But he did know the bridge, and I did say it was a major priority for North Carolina ó but we have so many priorities.”
The local commissioners, legislators and business leaders emerged from their 15-minute meeting with Perdue impressed that she would schedule their face-to-face on her second workday on the job.
“Her second day in office ó pretty major,” said Carl Ford, chairman of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. “And the day before she’s going to Washington.”
About 20 people met with Perdue at the State Capitol Building.
The Rowan County delegation included County Manager Gary Page; Rowan County Commissioners Ford, Tina Hall and Raymond Coltrain; N.C. Reps. Fred Steen and Lorene Coates; state Sen. Andrew Brock; and Chamber of Commerce officials Bob Wright and Randy Welch.
Outside the meeting room, Perdue said she had often traveled that particular corridor of Interstate 85 and read the newspaper clippings about the bridge concerns.
“I understand how dangerous folks across the country are telling us that bridge is,” Perdue said. “It is a major artery for commerce and our people, and if something happened to that bridge North Carolina, America and the East Coast would be paralyzed.”
She said that would not make good economic or safety sense.
“So my concern now is how we fund it and how we expedite the permitting process in an environmentally sound way and preservation way to put asphalt down and the columns in to make that bridge a reality during my term as governor.”
Before any timetable can be set for a bridge replacement project, she said, “we’ve got to find some money.”
Department of Transportation officials have put a Yadkin river bridge replacement ó part of a 6.8-mile I-85 widening project between Rowan and Davidson counties ó at about $300 million. The narrow bridge, whose northbound and southbound lanes have no shoulders, dates back to 1955.
Perdue noted funding for N.C. Department of Transportation highway projects will be dramatically affected in the coming budget year by lagging gas tax revenues and dwindling car sales.
Overall, the state faces economic challenges not seen since the Depression, Perdue said. Part of meeting those challenges will be to invest in infrastructure to grow the economy, move people and commerce safely and put people back to work.
“I can’t think of any kind of investment better to meet all that criteria than the Yadkin River bridge,” she said.
During her recent gubernatorial campaign, Perdue said, she was on that particular stretch of I-85 up to two times a week at all hours of the day.
“Every time I’d go across that bridge, I’d say, ‘Dear God, let me not be the one,’ ” she told the local officials.
Perdue said she would be meeting in Washington today with Obama’s transition team and members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation.
As for the state’s current economic position, Perdue said, “There is no good news in the budget.”
She said she was going to Washington with a strong “data-based list” of priorities, “and I will particularly make sure the Yadkin bridge is on the short list.”
Perdue said she was hopeful the federal government would not penalize North Carolina when it came to sharing in an economic stimulus package because the state had been a good steward, having operated under balanced budgets.
Coates, the Democratic House member from Rowan County, stressed to Perdue that if stimulus money would come to North Carolina for highway projects, it should not be placed into the DOT’s equity formula for distribution.
The formula would not provide enough money for the Yadkin River bridge project, Coates said.
Perdue said she didn’t know how federal stimulus money might come to North Carolina ó in block grants or as part of a formula, for example. But she promoted the need for “shovel-ready” highway projects that could put people back to work quickly.
Perdue told her visiting group, which included Commissioner Max Walser and economic development and Chamber of Commerce officials from Davidson County, that they had a governor “who wants to be a part of making things happen on the ground.”
“I will show up, I will cut a ribbon, I will make a call ó I won’t cook dinner,” she said. “… Please know you have a governor who really, really wants to help.”
State Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, R-Concord, Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Denton, and Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Lexington, also were part of the meeting.
The local leaders said they were encouraged by Perdue’s comments and impressed that Perdue had scheduled the meeting in only her second day on the job.
Ford said finding funding for the bridge replacement is crucial to economic development and even homeland security.
Walser said he was impressed with Perdue’s “knowledge of what’s going on.”
“Obviously, she has traveled it, and I’m confident she will do all she can,” Walser said.
Steen and Coates acknowledged that for now a possible stimulus package must be considered as one of the better hopes for funding the bridge, which Steen described as important for the whole state and, really, East Coast.
“I think everyone understands the importance of the bridge,” he said.
Coates said officials also must realize the current bridge (northbound and southbound structures) will require $5 million in repairs within the next five years. She says AAA rates it the worst bridge in North Carolina.
Rowan County Chamber of Commerce President Bob Wright said Tuesday’s meeting with Perdue represented one of the bigger steps to date in the many months of efforts to solicit funding for the bridge.
The strong turnout for the Perdue meeting, which was called on short notice Friday, shows the support the project has, Wright said.
“Timing is everything,” he added of Perdue’s going to Washington with the Yadkin bridge project on her mind.
Hall said she was impressed that Perdue seems interested in reforming the DOT and its approach to road-building.
“I think she’s off and running,” Hall said. “I think she’s committed to it.”
Coltrain said the early bird might get the worm in stimulus proceeds, but he reiterated concern that new highway money might have to go through the state equity formula. That would have to be prevented, he said.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.