County officials OK DOT’s plans for secondary road improvements

County officials OK DOT's plans for secondary road improvements
By Justin Goble
The Sylva Herald
May 1, 2008

County leaders April 21 unanimously approved plans from the N.C.
Department of Transportation to improve area secondary roads.

DOT officials discussed their plans during a public hearing prior to
commissioners' regular meeting that night. During that hearing,
Division 14 Engineer Joel Setzer said the DOT is trying to create a
network of paved secondary roads for motorists to use. However, funding
for many of those improvements hasn't been available in the past, he
said.

"We've not been able to spend all of the money that we've been
allocated in the past due to some funding issues with the state," he
said. "But we've tightened our belts, and now we can spend most of the
allocations we get to improve the roads."

DOT engineer Jonathan Woodard agreed, adding that many projects have
already been started in the county. With funding now available, he said
those should be completed sometime in the near future.

Along with posting safety signs throughout the county, Woodard said the
majority of projects under way involve paving sections of unpaved
roads. Those roads include Lower North Fork, Bullpen, Jurn McCall,
Chastain Creek, Garland Ashe, Happy Valley and Finley Forest. Paved
road improvements are taking place along Shook Cove and Monteith Branch
roads. The total cost of these projects is expected to run $2.9
million, he said.

For fiscal year 2008, Woodard said DOT officials expect to spend
$823,285 on road improvements. Along with continuing to install safety
signs as needed throughout the county, officials will be doing surveys
and spot improvements. Those projects are expected to continue for the
next three years. DOT officials are also planning to begin acquiring
right of ways to make paved road improvements on Cope Creek Road. Such
improvements will be made to Old Mission Road this year at an expected
cost of $300,000.

"We chose these roads based on two factors," Woodard said. "The first
was safety. We're hoping that, if we can improve and widen some of
these roads, we'll be able to reduce the number of crashes. The other
factor is trying to reduce the number of bottlenecks. Hopefully we'll
be able to reduce the amount of traffic congestion in the county."

The Cope Creek project is expected to continue through 2010, Woodard
said, with $300,000 being spent on engineering and right of way
acquisition. Improvements are expected to cost around $820,000, he
said.

DOT officials are also expected to make paved road improvements to Old
Settlement Road starting in 2009. That project is estimated to run
around $826,000, Woodard said.

The only community member to speak during the hearing was Smart Roads
Alliance's Susan Levielle of Webster, who asked if the DOT had
considered creating a network of secondary roads in the county to
divert traffic off N.C. 107 and cut down on congestion.

According to Conrad Burrell of Sylva, DOT board member for Division 14,
that's exactly what officials are aiming to do with these improvements.

"That's basically what we're doing," he said. "We're looking at ways to
take traffic out of the intersection at Bogart's (where U.S. 23
Business and N.C. 107 intersect). We're looking at every available
route to improve traffic on N.C. 107."