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A plan for four lanes and a concrete
median on part of South Main Street has
been scrapped, and now a plan to make it
uniformly three lanes – two travel lanes
and a middle turn lane – from Rogers
Road to Forestville Road is in the air.
Mayor Vivian Jones told the
commissioners she has a memo from Deputy
Town Manager Roe O’Donnell, saying he
has had “informal” discussions with the
state Department of Transportation about
the plan.
“At first we though DOT
would not approve a three-lane cross
section,” Jones said. “That could
alleviate some of the [traffic] problems
if we made that whole section
three-lane. Is that something you want
to talk about?”
A traffic study has shown
that “a three-lane cross section will
deal with the traffic at least on an
interim basis,” Town Manager Mark
Williams said.
“If you go to five lanes
that pretty much erodes that
neighborhood,” Planning Director Chip
Russell said.
The street is already three
lanes from Rogers Road to Forbes Road.
It is two lanes through a neighborhood
of brick homes built in the mid-1900s on
the east side and Cimarron subdivision
on the west. Just north of Forestville
Baptist Church and the curve at the Hoy
Auction House the street has been
widened to three lanes, which continues
to the N.C. 98 bypass.
“We had set aside bond money
for South Main,” Jones said. That was $1
million. After the four-lane plan was
rejected, Jones said, the board had
talked about diverting some of that
money to build sidewalks.
“Do we want to use the money
for South Main to do the three lanes or
do we want to do the sidewalks? We need
to discuss all these issues.” The issue
was added to the agenda for the town
board’s regular meeting on Feb. 20.
Also, at the close of the
planning board meeting Russell
distributed a list of possible highway
projects. He asked the members of the
two boards to look at the list and tell
him about anything else that can be
added. The list will go to CAMPO, the
Capital Area Metropolitan Planning
Organization, along with the lists from
27 other jurisdictions and then forward
to DOT where the projects may be added
to the seven-year Transportation
Improvement Plan (TIP).
The first project on the
list is the widening of South Main
Street (U.S. 1-A) from U.S. 1 (Capital
Boulevard) to the N.C. 98 bypass with a
cost of $7.4 million.
When the board was
discussing using the bond money to widen
part of the street, Town Manager Mark
Williams said, “Anytime we’re willing to
spend money on their roads, DOT is going
to be happy.” The street is owned and
maintained by DOT. |
