Jackson County commissioners were split over whether to endorse the construction of a controversial new highway outside of Sylva when the issue came up for a vote at a county meeting Monday.

The highway was included on a wishlist being sent to the N.C. Department of Transportation to guide future road projects in Jackson County. Commissioners voted 3 to 2 to sign off on the list, which was developed over the past year by a citizen-driven transportation task force.

The task force never formally endorsed the transportation plan that bears their name. The plan includes the 107 Connector, formerly known as the Southern Loop. The proposed road, which is already in the planning stages by DOT, would bypass the busy commercial corridor of N.C. 107, funneling traffic from the Cullowhee area directly to U.S. 23-74 north of Sylva.

Chairman Brian McMahan, who voted to approve the plan, explained that the vote should not be seen as an endorsement of the proposed 107 Connector.

“I want to make note that if we approve this plan, it does not mean we have approved or endorsed the construction of a new highway,” McMahan said.

The board approved the transportation plan with the caveat that they could withdraw their support for the plan following an environmental impact study of the new highway.

McMahan said the board wanted the chance to see the findings of ongoing N.C. Department of Transportation studies of traffic patterns and congestion on N.C. 107, the main commercial artery through Sylva and commuter route in the county.

“It’s just saying we’re going to continue the planning process, continue gathering the data and await eagerly the DOT to present its findings,” McMahan said.

The comprehensive transportation plan includes a long list of potential projects that could create a freer flow of traffic patterns in Jackson County. The Jackson County Transportation Task Force, a group made up of residents, business people and elected officials, served as an advisory board during the process of creating the plan, but the final version was ultimately developed by DOT staff in Raleigh then vetted through public hearings.

The adoption of the long-awaited comprehensive plan ends a five-year project to obtain a blueprint from the DOT for a road plan to accommodate the county’s growing population. While a victory for public input into the road planning process, the inclusion of the N.C. 107 Connector –– a project opposed by many locals –– makes that victory hollow for some.

Commissioner William Shelton, who served on the Jackson County Transportation Task Force, voted against adopting the plan because he wanted to send a message.

“In voting on this, I’m going to vote my conscience. I just want to send a message to the public and the DOT that this is not a heavy endorsement of the connector,” Shelton said.

Shelton said that while he backed nearly every aspect of the plan, including its community involvement process, he felt strongly that a ‘Yes’ vote could be seen as an endorsement of the N.C. 107 Connector.

Commissioner Tom Massie also voted against adopting the plan. Massie cited DOT statistics that show the connector road will likely not alleviate the traffic problems plaguing N.C. 107. Massie said the project would displace residents and create a negative environmental impact on the county.

“The reality is this is not going to reduce traffic on 107, particularly in the area where we want to go,” Massie said.

Massie said that the commuter traffic snarl that crops up on N.C. 107 twice a day is a small inconvenience.

“What are you spending? Another 10 minutes? That’s not traffic congestion in any other moderatel-sized community in this country,” Massie said.

Commissioner Joe Cowan voted for the plan and supports the construction of the connector road. He expressed his concern that a rejection of the plan would lead the DOT to yank the money already in the pipeline for the planning phase.

“This money is not going to last forever,” Cowan said. “All we need to do is turn it down a few times and it’ll go away.”

Cowan said the N.C. 107 Connector was the best solution he has heard regarding traffic congestion on Sylva’s commercial corridor.

“I’ve heard it discussed all of my life and I’m tired of listening to it. There is no good alternative,” Cowan said.

An overwhelming majority of citizens who showed up at a public hearing in Robbinsville spoke out against the Corridor K road project last Thursday (Oct. 29).

The proposed four-lane highway would supplant the winding, two-lane roads that are currently the only means of access to Graham County. In the process, it would bore a half-mile long tunnel — the longest in the state — through a mountain. It would also tower over the rural Stecoah Valley area.

Corridor K, a 127-mile route through the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, has been in the works for more than three decades. The DOT wants to start construction by 2014 on a 10-mile section of the 17-mile missing link in Graham County.

The road’s three goals are to bring economic development, end a geographic isolation N.C. DOT sees as dangerous, and improve steep and curvy roads that currently feature inadequate shoulders.

The highway would take the thousands of tractor-trailers out of the Nantahala Gorge, which is currently the main artery to reach Murphy but is clogged with buses loaded with rafters and kayakers.

David Monteith, a Swain County commissioner, said the new highway would increase tourism in Swain County, bringing more people in to raft the Nantahala and ride the train.

“It would bring in more people to Western North Carolina, period,” said Monteith.

But only two of the 22 speakers at the N.C. Department of Transportation hearing piped up in favor of the road. The rest enumerated every conceivable reason for why the road has no place in Graham County.

Bob Grove said the proposed roadway would not help Graham County’s economy. It would more likely provide easy access to a big-box chain stores like Wal-Mart than to downtown stores. For Grove, the highway provides an open invitation to local residents to head out of town to do their shopping.

Grove and many others suggested that it would be far less expensive and less destructive to improve the existing roads, rather than build a highway that would destroy the town’s main draw for tourists: scenic, winding two-lane roads.

Tom Hoffman of Virginia said he might stop coming to Graham County if the highway is built and that he would not return to “ooh and aah at a freeway interchange.”

Many voiced concerns about Robbinsville losing its rural character and transforming into yet another American “Clonesville,” with strip malls, billboards and fast-food chains lining the streets.

Others who objected said second home owners, who would surely come with the highway, would jack up tax values and drive out today’s local residents.

“It’s a euphemistic thing to be calling it economic development,” said Brian Rau of Stecoah. “To me, it’s just plain development.”

The issue hit close to home for Guy Roberts, who would lose the property that’s been in his family for five generations and more than a hundred years.

“We would like to preserve what is there for future generations,” said Roberts’ son-in-law Jeff Phillips. “I want to be able to fish with my grandchildren and have horses and cows they can play with. I want to be there for the rest of my life.”

A telling example of Graham County’s position came at two points in the night. Nearly everybody raised their hands when asked if they were against the road. When Melbe Millsaps asked who actually worked in Graham County, only a handful went up.

Millsaps said even though Corridor K would cut through her property, it would also provide more jobs and better access to education and healthcare for Graham County. Millsaps said she knows how dangerous the roads there can be after being forced to commute two hours each way to get to her nursing school.

“I think it’s time for Graham County to move into the 21st century and build the road,” Millsaps said.

Denny Mobbs, who lives in Ocoee, Tenn., agreed and said it’s time to bring some development into Graham County.

“We don’t want a pristine impoverishment,” said Mobbs.

Others worried about the road’s environmental impact, including air, noise and water pollution. The tunnel, which would be a major expense of the project, avoids the Appalachian Trail by going under it.

Melanie Mayes, a Knoxville geologist, said the N.C. DOT had not released any information about the possibility of landslides and acid leaching out of rocks.

Mayes pointed out that there was not even a single geologic map on the environmental impact study that was released. When Lewis said the N.C. DOT would give her all that information, Mayes retorted that it should have been released long ago.

Graham County Commissioner Steve Odom reminded citizens that even though Corridor K is controversial, they should realize that the county’s roads do need to be fixed in some way.

“It’s dangerous, I tell you,” said Odom. “You folks have a lot to debate, but we have some immediate needs, too.”

Weigh in on Corridor K

Let the N.C. DOT know what you think about the Corridor K Project by Dec. 4.

Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or write to Ed Lewis, NCDOT - Human Environment Unit; 1598 Mail Service Center; Raleigh, NC 27699-1598.

A proposed redesign of Russ Avenue, the main commercial thoroughfare in Waynesville, received strong public support among those who attended a public workshop last week to learn more about the plan.

“I think this has to be done,” said Lyle Coffey, one of several residents who came out to study the large maps on display. “Russ Avenue has to be redone in some way.”

Verona Martin said the free-for-all that defines Russ Avenue makes driving it unpleasant.

“I’m not happy with it all, especially in the morning when it is so congested,” Martin said. “It puts me off.”

The redesign aims to improve traffic flow, but will also impart an aesthetic appeal sorely lacking today, said Ron Reid, the owner of Andon Reid Inn Bed and Breakfast in Waynesville.

“It is important for us because so many of our guests come in this way,” Reid said of the corridor. “It is the gateway to Waynesville.”

The key component of the plan is replacing the middle turn lane with a landscaped median the length of Russ Avenue. Drivers could no longer dart across multiple lanes of oncoming traffic in pursuit of their favorite fast-food joint on the opposite side of the road.

Instead, left turns will be corralled at intersections, improving both safety and traffic flow. A network of new side streets would skirt behind the businesses, taking pressure off the main drag.

Intersections that are off-kilter will be aligned and extra turn lanes added. The most dramatic example is at the entrance to Ingles, where a side street looping behind CVS and McDonald’s is off-center and as a result under-utilized. A building stands in the way of the intersection to be aligned, but the plan calls for knocking it down to shift the intersection over.

“This is an awfully needed intersection alignment,” Coffey said of the spot.

The only people raising issues with the plan were property owners in the direct path of a wider road footprint. While they supported the premise of the redesign, they lobbied for alterations that wouldn’t encroach as much on their property.

“I’m taking a hit right there,” said John Burgin, pointing at the spot on the map occupied by Arby’s.

Burgin built the store 15 years ago and has leased it to Arby’s ever since. But the redesign would claim precious parking lot real estate and wipe out his drive-through exit.

“You have to have a drive-through,” Burgin said of the fast-food business. “The numbers that go through a drive-through are staggering.”

Bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of Russ Avenue would increase the road’s footprint, but would mostly fall within existing right of way. Extra turn lanes at major intersections are a different story, however, and would require taking of property. Such is the case in front of Arby’s, where an extra right-turn lane funneling vehicles into the Ingles entrance would claim part of Burgin’s already-cramped parking lot.

Mike Melner, owner of Joe’s Welding, stands to lose his entire shop if the intersection makeover at Dellwood Road goes through. But Melner said he liked the overall plan.

“There’s good and bad,” Melner said. The bad mostly being the loss of property, and the rest being good.

Melner, a horseback rider, said he would rather see horse lanes than bike lanes down Russ Avenue, thinking they would be important in the future.

“You have to keep your mind open,” Melner said.

Long, long, long way off

The town got a $40,000 state transportation planning grant to hire a firm of its choice to create a new plan for the road.

The total cost of the makeover is $21.7 million, according to estimates prepared by the firm, Wilbur Smith Associates. The road designers broke down the costs into the two major components: $15.5 million for the makeover of Russ Avenue itself and $6.1 million for the network of new side streets.

It could easily be 20 years before the plan comes to fruition, according to Town Planner Paul Benson. That’s how long it typically takes to advance a project to the top of the state road construction list. As for the Russ Avenue project, it isn’t even on the list yet, and once it does get there, there’s no telling where the DOT will place it in the pecking order.

“It’s a pretty long time in the future,” Benson said. “It is always subject to money availability and political wind.”

A plan to redesign Russ Avenue would dramatically alter the appearance and traffic flow along the frenzied main commercial artery of Waynesville.

The plan has several components, but chief among them is wiping out the middle turn lane. Instead a landscaped median will run the length of Russ Avenue.

If you want to visit up a business on the other side of the median, you’ll have hang a U-turn at a traffic light or duck up one of the new rear-access streets and skirt behind the buildings.

“A huge thing is the rear connectors,” said Town Planner Paul Benson. “It would allow people to move between businesses without ever coming out onto Russ Avenue.”

The goal of the median is to prevent left turns across multiple lanes of oncoming traffic when pulling in and out of parking lots. Instead, left turns will be corralled at intersections, improving both safety and traffic flow.

“Every time you have a left turn, you have to slow down and that means everybody behind you slows down,” Benson said. “Left turns bring traffic to a complete stop.”

Corralling turns at the traffic lights mean through traffic can sail by rather than constantly braking for darting cars.

It’s not likely that everyone will be fans of the median. It could deter people from patronizing an establishment on the other side, a possible negative for business owners.

But the status quo isn’t much better, said Fred Baker, the Waynesville Public Works Director.

“Nobody is going to visit a business if it is gridlocked in front of your store,” Baker said. “It doesn’t do much good to have unlimited driveway access when it is so congested people don’t want to stop and there’s lots of accidents.”

Nonetheless, some drivers might not like the idea of doubling back should the mood strike them for an Arby’s roast beef or KFC biscuit on the spur of the moment.

But perhaps that’s a good thing, said Joe Taylor, the owner of Taylor Ford Motor Company on Russ Avenue.

“It’s as dangerous as a cocked gun,” Taylor said of Russ Avenue. “When you get 25,000 cars a day on a five-lane road, you shouldn’t impulsively dart across oncoming traffic, so maybe it is a good idea if you have to think about getting over and turning at the stop light. You are encouraging people to be a little safer.”

Taylor comes and goes from his Russ Avenue dealership several times a day. The only time he dares a left out of his parking lot is late at night or early Sunday morning when traffic is sparse. Otherwise, he makes his way to the nearest traffic light for his left-turn needs.

While Taylor thinks creating a safer road is paramount, he likes the other elements of the plan as well: the additional turning lanes at major intersections, the rear-access roads, and realigning sigogglin intersections.

“We need it so badly,” Taylor said of the plan.

At one time, the five-lane commercial strip — defined by a middle turn lane dubbed the suicide lane — was standard road-building fare for the DOT. The five-lane road design proliferated across the nation, working hand in hand with suburban sprawl of fast-food chains and strip malls.

But road engineers have been moving away from the model and instead have heralded the landscaped median as a new approach, largely due to extensive research of accidents involving a suicide lane, according to Deniece Swinton, a transportation engineer with Wilbur Smith Associates, the firm that created the redesign plan.

“Initially DOT was all for that suicide center lane,” Swinton said. “But I think they are coming to realize a median is a lot safer. We are finding more and more of them in DOT are opening up to that idea.”

The design is a lot prettier, too, driving communities to request the design over the traditional five-lane strip.

“The majority of the cities we work with, this is the first thought. They want something pretty — a landscaped median with street trees,” Swinton said.

While some business owners oppose medians, claiming it will hurt their stores if people can’t turn in, Swinton said the trade-off is worth it.

“The only thing I can say is the whole safety factor,” Swinton said. “I understand the median prohibits people from turning left directly into their business but providing them a safer way to get into their business is a plus.”

Crafting the plan

While those caught in after-work traffic snarls on Russ Avenue might feel like the prospects for a fix are hopeless, a solution is well within reach, according to Swinton.

The town got a $40,000 state transportation planning grant to hire a firm of its choice to create a new plan for the road. Swinton was the lead consultant on the project.

Swinton’s first impression of the road?

“Very busy, a lot going on, a lot of traffic, a lot of potential conflict points.”

The description sounds familiar to anyone who’s driven the stretch during rush hour, one foot hovered over the brake while furtively on the lookout for darting cars.

Swinton’s goal was to corral left turns to traffic lights, thus the median. With left turns off the main road being restricted, Swinton looked for alternative ways to access businesses, thus the rear access roads behind buildings.

“I thought personally it was somewhat of an easy fix. There was enough land to create these connector roads,” Swinton said.

The commercial corridor targeted in the plan is less than one mile long, roughly from Bi-Lo at one end of Russ Avenue to the bypass just past McDonald’s.

Russ Avenue is an important road in the county and one that plays dual roles, said Mayor Gavin Brown.

“It is an important commercial hub in the town of Waynesville,” Brown said. Brown also sees Russ Avenue as one of the major gateways into town.

The town thus had dual goals in a redesign: make it prettier and improve traffic flow.

Baker called the redesign “extremely attractive.”

What’s next?

When or if the plan ever comes to fruition ultimately lies in the hands of the Department of Transportation.

To get that ball rolling, Brown anticipates the town board will formally adopt a redesign plan for Russ Avenue by spring. It will then advance to a regional transportation planning board, and from there inch its way toward the DOT’s state priority list.

“If we can get the powers that be to agree that this is the result we want, then politically they will have to find the money to do it,” Taylor said.

Brown is hoping to see the plan implemented in 10 years.

“You would like to think if we really pushed on it and DOT was cooperative and funds were available, that would be reasonable,” Brown said of his 10-year goal.

Baker said the plan could be targeted in stages if there isn’t money or political will by the DOT to do it in one fell swoop.

In ideal world, however, it would be fully implemented rather than a piecemeal approach, Benson said.

“If you just pick one piece, it won’t work as well as if it is fully integrated,” Benson said. “The tricky thing is it involves quite a bit of property acquisition to create these rear connectors.”

See the map

Dueling solutions for relieving traffic on N.C. 107 in Sylva are poised to make the final cut in the long-awaited Jackson County Transportation Plan.

Both a bypass around the commercial thoroughfare and redesign of the road itself could ultimately be pursued, working in tandem to solve congestion rather than being an either-or proposition.

The task force charged with creating a long-range transportation plan for the county still faces a looming question, however: which one will appear on top of their list? Task force members are split over that question.

Dean Coward, an accountant in Sylva who is on the task force, believes the bypass is the answer, creating a new connector from U.S. 23-74 into the Cullowhee area that would avoid the bottleneck along the commercial stretch of N.C. 107.

“I hate to see that torn up,” Coward said of the countryside that would be impacted. “But the honest truth is that it is the only thing that will give real relief.”

Coward’s wife, who works at Western Carolina University, leaves for work at 7 a.m. to avoid traffic on N.C. 107, even though it puts her at work far earlier than she needs to be there.

But others on the task force would rather see trouble spots on N.C. 107 fixed first, including Alan Grant, who works at Southwestern Community College. Grant has sat through up to four light cycles at the intersection of N.C. 107 and U.S. Business 23 on Friday afternoon.

“I think almost everyone in Jackson County would think that is a major problem,” Grant said.

As for the bypass: “I am not against it, I just don’t think it is a panacea,” Grant said.

Still others on the task force don’t think a bypass belongs on the final list at all.

“In my view, once they fix the light timing on N.C. 107, I don’t think we really have a traffic problem,” said Don Selzer, another task force member. “There are certain times of day when things back up a little bit, but I don’t think it is a big deal.”

Loose ends

While reconciling the divergent views seems unlikely, task force members say they should attempt to rank the projects by priority and then vote on a final plan. It is unclear whether they will have that chance, however.

The coordinator of the task force, Ryan Sherby of the Southwestern Commission, said the task force has completed its charge of creating a master transportation plan.

At the last task force meeting, members assigned scores of 1 through 5 to a laundry list of road projects that were developed by the task force over the past years. Sherby tallied the scores and said the list now suffices as a transportation plan for the county.

Task force members feel otherwise, however. Those on both sides of the most contentious road project — a new bypass around N.C. 107 — want the opportunity to prioritize the list and to take a formal vote on it.

“With the limited financing from the state, we need to be absolutely sure that number one, two and three on the list are the real priorities,” Grant said. “It is the difference between reality and a wish list.”

Task force members didn’t realize walking into the last meeting that they would be asked to score the projects. The format for the meeting wasn’t revealed until its outset, allowing task force members little time to contemplate their answer, they said.

“It has got to be prioritized, but I don’t think going around the table and loosely getting people to throw out a score is the way to do it,” Coward said.

Grant says he would like to reconsider his score for a couple of the projects, describing the initial scoring process as merely “suggestive.”

Susan Levielle, another task force member, said she felt so flustered when it was her turn to rank the bypass that she gave it a high score even though she is adamantly opposed to it.

Task force members have yet to see a final tally of how each road project scored. Sherby compiled a spreadsheet of the rankings that shows the cumulative scores for each project, but has not disseminated it to the task force members — another reason they see the need to meet again.

“If I have been involved and put the energy in this far, I need to see the final plan to express an opinion on it before it goes out the door,” said Grant. “It still needs some finishing up.”

Few happy with results

While some opponents to a N.C. 107 connector say the task force didn’t give them adequate time to discuss their concerns, those who are for the bypass feel like too much time was dedicated to it.

Dean Coward said representatives from Smart Roads, a citizens group opposed to the bypass, have dominated the task force meetings, and as a result, he isn’t overly pleased with how the process went.

“I don’t see we are accomplishing a whole lot. I think we are spinning our wheels,” Coward said. “I think our role needs to be a little clearer as to what we are to do and who’s responsible for what. We have just been floundering around.”

Coward thinks the scoring system undertaken at the last meeting was an attempt to keep naysayers from continuing to bog down the process, but perhaps overcompensated. A plan was rapidly shepherded to the finish line and the result isn’t a very useful list, Coward said. Coward would rather see the task force prioritize the projects and then vote on the list — even if it results in a split vote.

Coward admits a consensus will be difficult, however. But the lack of a bona fide ranking system doesn’t do justice to the most serious problem of all: N.C. 107.

“It is the one road that affects everybody in the county,” Coward said. “I think you got to deal with 107 separately and then you can get about the other things that need to happen.”

Coward called the bypass aruund 107 “the elephant in the room.”

Levielle agrees. She suggests taking 107 off the list completely and dealing with it as a separate issue, allowing the rest of the transportation plan to advance with the task force’s endorsement, unfettered by controversy.

The appearance of both projects in the county’s transportation plan pleases Joel Setzer, the head of the Department of Transportation for the region.

“I honestly believe that both are needed,” Setzer said.

That’s what Setzer has been saying for several years. The task force seems to concur, he said, and the recommendation is supported by the traffic models created over the course of the task force’s work. Those traffic models show that congestion management alone along N.C. 107 couldn’t handle all the traffic projected along the road by the year 2035, Setzer said.

“I think if the task force and the model had said the new connection isn’t needed, I would have had to say I was mistaken and am sorry for that,” Setzer said. “I am relieved somewhat that my opinions after we started doing some number generation seem to be validated. That is always reassuring.”

But the traffic models were based on only a partial set of plans, according to some task force members. A feasibility study by DOT to fix N.C. 107 is only in the preliminary stages, so traffic engineers providing data to the task force couldn’t accurately gauge how much traffic would be improved by a redesign when the redesign hasn’t been formulated yet.

Don Selzer, a task force member, gave low scores to both congestion management fix for N.C. 107 and the bypass. He was under the impression congestion management meant extensive widening of N.C. 107 with more lanes — and if that’s what it means he’s against it. If it simply means targeting problem intersections, he’s for it.

Dean Coward also had trouble scoring congestion management since he didn’t know exactly what it entailed.

“It seems to be a generic term for a problem,” Coward said.

DOT’s Joel Setzer agrees that it’s unclear what fixing N.C. 107 would entail, whether that would mean extra lanes, perhaps roundabouts, side roads to handle traffic or some other combination. A feasibility study for a redesign of N.C. 107 is currently in the works but is far from complete.

As for which to pursue first — a new connector or 107 redesign — Setzer leans toward the bypass. Once completed, it would give drivers a way around N.C. 107, which could be crucial during construction on the thoroughfare itself.

“It is going to be a nightmare when that thing is under construction,” Setzer said.

Cart before the horse?

While the task force has not been afforded the opportunity to vote on the transportation plan, a regional transportation board already signed off on the draft plan last week. At a quarterly meeting of the Regional Planning Organization, comprised of elected leaders from six counties, Sherby asked the board to conditionally approve the Jackson County Transportation Plan.

Sherby said he planned to present the plan to the Jackson County commissioners in December, as well as to all four municipalities in the county, and expected them all to approve it. He asked the regional transportation planning body to go ahead and approve the plan, assuming that the elected bodies follow suit.

“I thought we could pass a resolution of support contingent on the county and four municipalities, that if they pass it by default the RPO supports it,” Sherby told members at the meeting.

As a result, the regional transportation board unanimously endorsed the task force’s plan, even though the task force itself has yet to endorse it.

Western North Carolina has steadily lost out on tens of millions in federal highway dollars over the past decade, despite the money being specifically earmarked for the region.

Mountain leaders sent a message to both Raleigh and Washington this week to restore a special pot of money for highway projects in the mountains. The money was being siphoned off by Raleigh and doled out across the entire state rather than going to WNC as intended by federal legislation dating back to 1965.

“This money was set aside to help the far western counties, but over time it got put into the general pool,” said Ronnie Beale, Macon County commissioner chairman.

The special pot of highway money was supposed to improve the lot of Appalachian people. The region historically suffered from higher poverty and unemployment rates. Its isolation and lack of high-speed highways was considered a major culprit.

The interstate system connecting the rest of the country largely bypassed Appalachia, skirting the rugged region when possible due to high costs of road construction in the mountains. To counter the topographic challenges and rectify the isolation brought about by lack of highways, federal lawmakers earmarked a special pot of money each year to fund the Appalachian Development Highway System.

But a minor accounting change that occurred in the mid-1990s kept the money from reaching its intended destination. Instead of arriving as a special appropriation, the money was bundled along with the rest of the federal transportation budget when being sent to the state.

The state claimed it could not unbundle the money. Once bundled in with the rest, the state claimed it was obligated to divvy it up among the entire state as it did the rest of the federal transportation money.

“It wasn’t considered extra money, and North Carolina law says if it is not extra money, it gets caught up in the state’s distribution formula,” said Joel Setzer, head of the N.C. Department of Transportation Division 14, a 10-county mountain region.

“It is my belief that violates the spirit of the Appalachian program. It is a belief shared by many,” Setzer said.

A committee of leaders from six counties that comprise the Southwestern Regional Transportation Planning Organization adopted a resolution this week condemning the practice. The committee includes commissioners from six counties and mayors of several towns.

The resolution calls on the special highway funding to be restored to the region. In particular, it asks the federal government to separate the money from the rest of the state’s transportation budget so the state wouldn’t face the challenge of unbundling it.

The special federal pot designated for WNC is supposed to be $30 million a year. One road project that stands to benefit from the Appalachian highway construction dollars is a missing link of Corridor K (see related article.) The road would blaze a four-lane highway around Robbinsville, relieving a narrow two-lane bottleneck for people traveling to Murphy. It has been in the planning stages for decades, but carries a price tag of nearly $800 million to finish a 17-mile missing link through Graham County.

Setzer suggested that the message would carry even more weight if a similar resolution was adopted by counties and towns across the region. Macon and Graham counties have already done so.

“We have to keep hollering louder and louder and louder,” Beale said.

The state has stockpiled some of the money, with around $150 million accumulated but unspent, Setzer said. Setzer hopes the mountains can draw from the funds once the accounting classification is changed.

Some members of the Jackson County Transportation Task Force feel like the list of road projects bearing their name has not properly been vetted, despite the work of the task force being declared finished.

“I think the task force has satisfied their charge in creating a comprehensive transportation plan,” said Ryan Sherby, community transportation coordinator with the Southwestern Regional Commission.

After a stint before the public for comment later this month, Sherby anticipates shipping the plan along to the county commissioners for approval and then sending it up the chain to guide road building priorities by the N.C. Department of Transportation. At this point, Sherby doesn’t intend the task force will ever formally vote on the plan — even though the plan will bear their name and they will be credited with creating it.

“This isn’t a real rigid process,” Sherby said.

Some task force members were surprised to learn, however, that their work is done. At their most recent meeting, they were never told it would be their last. They also weren’t told that the plan — essentially a list of future road projects — was in its final form and being sent on to county commissioners for a stamp of approval without the task force formally endorsing it.

“From my standpoint, there was no integrity or forthrightness about what was happening at that last meeting,” said Susan Leveille, a member of the task force and of the Smart Roads coalition. “We were being rushed.”

After more than year of poring over growth and traffic projections, the task force spent the past five months coming up with a list of new road projects that would make travel safer and faster.

Rather than vetting the list through discussion, however, task force members were asked to rank each project on a scale of 1 to 5. Task force members were asked to go around the table and verbally call out their score for each project, a process repeated 17 times for each road project on the list. The numbers for each project were tallied to decide which stayed on the list. Only one came off.

Sherby called it a “consensus building exercise.” The format for the meeting came as a surprise, however.

“We knew that we were going to be making some choices,” Leveille said. “But we had no idea what the procedure was going to be. We had no idea there would be a facilitator that was railroading us through this. I expected some thoughtful discussion.”

For some on the task force, the recent episode is indicative of the entire process.

“The task force was not in the driver’s seat,” said Jeanette Evans, another member of the Smart Roads coalition. “It felt steamrolled.”

Another source of confusion is exactly what the rankings were supposed to reflect.

“That’s a good question,” said Don Selzer, a task force member appointed by the county commissioners. “My understanding was that it was a vote to put certain options before the public — not necessarily ones we recommended but these are the options available.”

However, the rankings are apparently being viewed as an endorsement of the road projects on the list by the task force, since there is no plan to bring the list back to the task force for a vote. That is upsetting to Leveille, since she gave a high ranking to the Southern Loop, a controversial bypass around the commercial district of N.C. 107. Leveille is against the project and would have scored it much lower if she understood it was somehow a final vote. But she gave it a high ranking simply because she thought it merited additional discussion.

Sherby said the plan rests with county commissioners now, along with elected town leaders, and it will be their call whether the list goes back to the task force to formally sign off on the plan.

“If the county commissioners want the task force to do that then we will,” Sherby said.

That may be something the commissioners ask for, said County Commissioner William Shelton.

“There is always the possibility the commissioners would have some more questions of the task force before it goes to final approval,” said Shelton, who is on the task force.

Shelton is among those who were surprised that the plan is supposedly complete and the task force wouldn’t be meeting again. Shelton thinks the laundry list of road projects should be assigned a more thoughtful ranking than its current form.

Selzer is also uncomfortable with the lack of finality the last meeting had. He doesn’t think the plan as is can be touted as something the task force has endorsed.

“I would like to see a final list and say ‘yes or no, this is what we want,’” Selzer said. Selzer said he is “not terribly satisfied” with the process the task force used to create a plan.

A road project known as Corridor K will boast the longest tunnel in the state of North Carolina if built as planned: a 2,807-foot passage through the side of a mountain in the Stecoah area of Graham County.

Construction on a missing section of Corridor K including the tunnel is slated to start in 2014, although the timeline is admittedly “ambitious,” according to Joel Setzer, head of the N.C. Department of Transportation Division 14, a 10-county mountain region.

The highway will be the first four-lane road blazed into Robbinsville. The tiny town and county seat of Graham is currently accessible only by winding two-lane roads no matter how you approach it.

Once finished, Corridor K would also offer a bypass of sorts around the Nantahala Gorge, which currently acts as a two-lane bottleneck when traveling to the Andrews and Murphy area.

The missing link of Corridor K — roughly 17 miles in Graham County — has been held up for years due to funding and environmental challenges, according to Setzer.

The missing section is being tackled in two parts: 10 miles heading north out of Robbinsville along N.C. 143 and 7 miles heading south of Robbinsville that would lead into the Andrews area.

The 10-mile section north of Robbinsville, which includes the tunnel under Stecoah Gap, is nearing the final planning stages. It is estimated at $378 million. Of that, nearly $200 million is for the tunnel.

The 10-mile stretch currently being pursued will severely impact the rural character of Stecoah Valley. It will spill into the Nantahala National Forest, skirt the Appalachian Trail, degrade viewsheds and damage the environment.

Yet the promise of a four-lane highway through territory currently lacking one has been pushed for by leaders in the region.

A public hearing on the route will be held Oct. 29 in Robbinsville, with an open house to preview the plans on Oct. 27 in Cullowhee. More information on the time and place will be posted in later editions.

Two accommodations have been proposed to lessen the environmental impacts. One is the tunnel, which will burrow under the Appalachian Trail so hikers don’t have to across the highway. The other is an elevated bridge 80 feet in the air when passing over Stecoah Creek and the valley floor.

The entire Corridor K highway is a 127-mile route through the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, forging one of the first four-lane highways through rural mountain counties. U.S. 23-74 around Waynesville and continuing past Sylva and on to Bryson City — known to locals as the “bypass” — is part of the original Corridor K vision dating back to the 1970s.

As the main coordinator of a comprehensive transportation plan for Macon County, Ryan Sherby faces a long road ahead of him.

Sherby and a local steering committee — with the help of public input — aim to determine the transportation projects that Macon County needs most.

The comprehensive transportation plan will look as far ahead as 25 years, also exploring alternative means of transportation like public transit, walking and biking.

The process is a joint effort undertaken by the towns of Franklin and Highlands, Macon County, the N.C. Department of Transportation, and Sherby’s organization, the Southwestern Rural Planning Organization. Sherby hopes to wrap up the process in 12 to 18 months.

As if the prospect of planning a quarter century in advance isn’t daunting just on its own, there’s also the task of winning the community’s trust.

At a public meeting last Thursday, Macon County residents voiced their concerns, exhibiting eagerness to engage in the comprehensive plan as well as skepticism about whether their opinions would actually be taken into consideration.

Some said the DOT turned a deaf ear to their protests against building a new road in the vicinity of Southwestern Community College and the Macon Library. The road was billed as improving access to the college and library, but in the process cuts through undeveloped land and spans the Little Tennessee River, all the while paralleling an existing road. Opponents lobbied for upgrading existing Siler Road instead of building a new one.

“I collected 500 signatures against the road,” said Sharon Taylor. “We were never given an opportunity to have any participation in the design and now it’s a 100-foot swath across the county ... without a bike lane.”

Sherby reassured the audience that things would be different this time around.

“The DOT is going through a transformation process, trying to be more accountable and engage the public more,” Sherby said. “They have not been sensitive to the public in the past, but I think they’re working toward that direction.”

Kay Coriell, president of the Friends of the Greenway, said officials from the DOT came in twice recently to ask for opinions on the bridge that will span the Little Tennessee and the greenway as part of the new road.

“It shows that they’re listening,” Coriell said, adding that whether they actually do anything after listening is anyone’s guess.

Throughout the meeting, Sherby repeatedly invited citizens to pick up his business card and give him a call or shoot him an e-mail to share their opinions about the plan. He has already collected more than 300 surveys on transportation issues from Macon County residents and will continue to accept those surveys until Oct. 1.

Macon County citizens have already filled out more than twice the total number of surveys submitted in Jackson County.

On the survey, respondents rate the importance of goals like safety, faster travel times, environmental protection, economic growth and alternative transportation. They also can indicate whether they support widening existing roads and building new ones versus improving the flow of traffic on existing roads — or both. Survey takers can also weigh in on the need for bike lanes, greenways and park-and-ride lots.

Citizens at Thursday’s meeting said they would like to see lanes widened to accommodate school buses, a commercial bus line into Asheville, more sidewalks, the creation of bike paths, and flexibility in design.

After gauging how local citizens want their transportation systems to evolve, Sherby and the steering committee will collect and analyze data. Next is formulating a vision statement, and the final step is coming up with a list of transportation projects to endorse.

Macon County’s comprehensive transportation plan will be the second in the western region of the state, following Jackson County’s lead. The Rural Transportation Planning Organization will eventually coordinate plans in Swain, Cherokee, Clay, and Graham counties as well.

A fix for impending traffic congestion on N.C. 107 in Sylva doesn’t lie solely with a new bypass but will require a redesign of the commercial artery itself, according to the latest traffic projections by the Department of Transportation.

Two sides have emerged in the long-standing debate over whether to build a new highway around Sylva. One camp wants to build a bypass allowing commuters to skirt the commercial mire of N.C. 107. The other wants to redesign N.C. 107 so traffic flows better.

The answer could be both, according to recent DOT traffic projections. The Jackson County Transportation Task Force held a public meeting last week to gather input on both ideas, although participation was very low.

A new bypass would not divert enough cars from the commercial hotbed on N.C. 107 to solve future traffic woes, according to the traffic projections. Back-ups on the stretch largely stem from people coming and going from places along the congested stretch itself, according to Pam Cook, a DOT transportation planner working on a master transportation plan for Jackson County.

Opponents of a new bypass, known as the Southern Loop, have long insisted that it wouldn’t solve congestion. Joel Setzer, head of the DOT for the 10 western counties, said he, too, always knew that a bypass wouldn’t solve all the problems. It’s one reason Setzer called for a separate congestion management study now underway by DOT experts in Raleigh.

Whether the result will be a full-fledged redesign of N.C. 107 or simply tinkering with the timing of stoplights won’t be known for at least a year, likely much longer. The congestion management study is still in its early stages — so early in fact there are no numbers on how much a redesign will help.

Theoretically, a host of congestion management techniques could be implemented, each one ratcheting up the traffic flow and reducing back-ups. Although the DOT engineers haven’t run the specific traffic models to see how much each technique would help, they’ve looked at it enough to say that whatever it is, it won’t be enough.

“Will it be enough to handle all the traffic to make it function well?” asked Cook. “Probably not. That is something we have to determine.”

Why not wait before making a decision in that case, asked Susan Leveille, a member of the Jackson County Smart Roads Alliance.

“I am still a bit confused why we can’t look at congestion management on 107 before we spend hundreds of millions developing a bypass,” said Leveille. “You need to look at the small things you can do. You don’t bulldoze down your house because you need another bathroom.”

Decision pending

The Jackson County Transportation Task Force will be asked to endorse a countywide transportation master plan in the coming months. It not only will address N.C. 107, but span the entire county — from congestion in Cashiers to Main Street in Sylva to the campus of WCU.

The task force is being pushed to put its stamp of approval on a long-range plan — which at the moment calls for the construction of the bypass — before the traffic models for 107 fixes are finished.

Jeanette Evans, a member of Smart Roads and opponent of the by-pass, questioned the wisdom of endorsing a bypass until the task force has a better handle on how much fixes along N.C. 107 will help.

“I would like to be able to play with 107 in some respects to see how it works if we do this or that,” Evans said at a public meeting last week.

Ryan Sherby, a transportation coordinator who serves as a liaison between mountain communities and the DOT, questioned whether that was the task force’s job.

“The task force is a vision body, not an engineer body,” Sherby said.

“If you don’t know what the options are or the consequences of this or that action, how can you vision?” countered Leveille. “It seems to me like we are being asked to make a decision without all the information.”

Cook reiterated that congestion management, while needed, would fall short.

“My opinion at this point is that I don’t think there will be enough with congestion management,” Cook said.

Leveille and Evans said they did not understand why they are being rushed into approving a plan by July. The task force spent 18 months corralling and sifting through population and growth data. It only began the nitty-gritty work of analyzing the different road options two months ago. July is too soon to sign off on a master plan, they said, especially since it addresses everything from widening Main Street on the outskirts of Sylva to widening U.S. 64 in the middle of Cashiers.

“I don’t see how we can come up with a comprehensive plan in a matter of three or four months,” Leveille said.

Initially, the July deadline would allow the DOT to incorporate the task force recommendations into its annual planning process, Sherby said. It could be pushed back a couple months, however, Sherby said.

All the options are predicated on traffic models for 2035, when congestion on some roads will surpass what the DOT considers acceptable. But that model has been called into question.

“Are we planning for 2035 as we have lived in the past?” questioned Myrtle Schrader, who attended the meeting last week. “I don’t hear anything about the future of transportation. We need to look at what our lifestyle can and should be here in the mountains.”

Dr. Cecil Groves, president of Southwestern Community College, said that it is fair and accurate to assume there will be more cars on the road by 2035.

“What we know is if we don’t do anything it only gets significantly worse and more difficult to correct. The population here is going to grow. So we have to make an educated guess the best we can,” Groves said.

Groves advocated for more thought-out land-use planning that would influence commercial growth, rather than figure out how to accommodate it once it has cropped up.

Another question involved the DOT’s definition of congestion. Is the congestion a brief spike during commuter hours, or is it sustained and chronic? Setzer said the congestion was more than a momentary spike, but wasn’t all-day congestion either.

Compromise afoot?

News that the DOT is considering a redesign of N.C. 107 coupled with a bypass — rather than either-or — could signal the beginning of a compromise.

The bypass, formerly known as the Southern Loop, was initially billed as a major freeway through southern Jackson County, looping from U.S. 23-74 north of Sylva to U.S. 441 south of Dillsboro. Somewhere in between it would cross N.C. 107 with a major interchange.

In response to public opposition, the DOT dropped half of the Southern Loop — the part extending to U.S. 441 south of Dillsboro.

The DOT is still seriously contemplating the other half, but the language describing the road has been toned down. Instead of the once-touted four-lane freeway, the DOT shifted gears in the past year to consider a two-lane road instead.

That two-lane road would claim enough right of way to accommodate four lanes one day, said Joel Setzer, head of the DOT for the 10 western counties. It would still be designed for a speed of 55 miles per hour. It would still operate like a freeway in the sense of limited access from driveways or intersecting roads. And where it joined N.C. 107, it would likely have an interchange rather than an intersection with a stoplight, Setzer said. But the two-lane concept is scaled down nonetheless.