Road map for future
By Steve Herring
Published in News on February 12, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata addresses members of the community during the hot topic discussion about transportation at Lane Tree Golf Club Wednesday. This is the third year that Tata was invited to the event to be the keynote speaker by the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce.
A bill seeking interstate status for the new U.S. 70 bypass is expected to be introduced in the U.S. House by next week at the request of N.C. Transportation Secretary Tony Tata.
That was the message that Tata brought Wednesday during the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce's Hot Topic program at the Lane Tree Golf Club.
Tata also said he is pushing the state to change some of the criteria being used in the new highway program to rank some road projects.
And the state plans to make major improvements to the Morehead City Port that will allow it to handle the new larger container ships, he said.
Complementing that project would be the creation of an inland port at the Global TransPark at Kinston that would serve as a distribution hub for the containers. It would require "cleaning up" the railroad tracks between Kinston and the port, he said.
Tata urged audience members to stay abreast of what is happening in transportation. He cites the example of a federal meeting where decisions were made about port improvements.
North Carolina was not represented and what happened was that ports to the south of the state were the ones that selected for major improvements, he said. Those ports are in direct competition with North Carolina ports, he said.
Tata's comments were met with applause from the audience including members who in the past have been critical of the ranking criteria saying that it favored urban over rural projects.
"He is singing our song," said Wayne County Commissioner Joe Daughtery, who has been among those critics. "That is if we are going to grow in Wayne County and eastern North Carolina, it rests on Morehead.
"If we get Morehead, if we get container ships, if we get an inland port over at the TransPark, Interstate 70 -- the vitality of eastern North Carolina is wide open. So he is definitely singing my song, and I love it."
Daughtery, chairman of the county's Transportation Committee, did not appear concerned that Tata had not mentioned I-795 during his comments.
Daughtery said he had not asked about it because I-795 will have to be taken a "piece at a time."
The county has to get overpasses in place and finish the road south of the Neuse River, he said.
"Then the last piece is going to be that missing link going across the river," he said. "Then we can get the rest of it. It is going to be long range, but building highways takes 20 to 40 years anyway."
Daughtery said he also liked what Tata had to say about possible changes to the highway funding formula.
That includes changing how roads near military bases are rated. Under the existing formula the road had to touch the base to receive points.
Tata praised the new funding process, but said he is pushing to change that to provide a buffer around a base. As long as the road touched that buffer, it would get more points, he said.
Daughtery agreed with Tata that such an approach makes more sense.
It would have been a "major thing" had that been in effect this past year, and I-795 would have been ranked higher, Daughtery said.
"There are only so many roads that can go to Seymour Johnson," he said. "The effect is not on the roads actually getting to the base. It is actually the supporting roads on the outside and perimeter, and it looks like they are going to address that."
Daughtery said he also likes that the state is looking at placing less emphasis on congestion or changing how the points are calculated.
For example, U.S. 70 is not as busy in January as it is in July, he said.
"So let's take those figures for July and use those for congestion," he said. "That is where the problem is, and they are addressing that."
Daughtery's comments reflected those made by Tata, who said that Gov. Pat McCrory's goal is to connect rural and urban North Carolina -- connect to education, health care, job centers and recreation centers.
That appears to be a "common sense" idea, Tata said. However, the working group that set the criteria "struggled" with the concept, he said.
Tata said he is not part of the process, but can provide guidance. The group makes the final decision.
"I said, 'Look, if you have a port for example that is a huge economic driver, if you are within a half a mile of a port, and you have a road that is going to connect to an Interstate, then you ought to get credit (ranking points) for that,'" he said.
The same is true for any road that comes near Seymour Johnson AFB if it helps the connectivity, he said.
The group did not take that suggestion. Instead it required that the road actually cross the property line to be eligible for the points.
Because of that, I-295 in Fayetteville received "zero points" for connecting Fort Bragg, he said. Fortunately, the highway still made the funding cut even without those points, he said.
"Afterward I said, 'You see how that does not make any sense whatsoever?'" he said. "They said yes. So they are going to change that to a buffer zone which I asked for two years ago."
Another suggestion is looking at seasonal versus annual traffic patterns, he said.
Roads in tourist areas could be "jammed up" during the tourist season, but have normal traffic at other times, he said.
"From a tourism standpoint you want tourists to have a great experience," he said. "You don't want them to be saying, 'We had fun, but we are never coming back here because it is a parking lot getting there and a parking lot getting out of there.'
"They (group) annualized the traffic which makes it look like there is very minimal traffic."
Tata said he suggested the group use the peak month for each project.
"So that is what they are looking at," he said. "That will make rural projects, I think, more competitive in some ways. So those are some ways that we are fixing some of the errors."
The big picture is how the state will pay for the projects, he said.
Complicating the issue is how the state computes its gas tax.
Currently the tax is 37.5 center per gallon. If the state uses the regular formula is will drop to 30 cents.
That translates to an annual loss of $400 million in the DOT budget used for resurfacing, litter pickup and mowing.
A bill has been introduced in the state Senate to set a floor of 35 cents per gallon.
Even then it would still mean a loss of $125 million since one cent of the tax generates $50 million.