They snipped a red ribbon in Beaufort County a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the nearly finished U.S. 17 bypass around Chocowinity, a shrinking town with a pretty name.
The state Department of Transportation has laid out a $210 million freeway that curves east to pass Chocowinity and then zooms around the west side of nearby Washington, N.C., crossing the Tar River on a 2.8-mile bridge.
The Washington-Chocowinity Bypass is a pretty good example of what's wrong or what's right - depending on where you live and drive - with the "equity formula" that governs how most road-building money is divided between rural and urban areas of North Carolina.
The legislature is considering whether to tinker with the formula this year.
Is it equitable? City-dwellers generally think not.
That's because the equity formula gives no weight to spending scarce dollars where North Carolina has its worst traffic congestion. Population is a minor factor in the formula, but residents are counted where they live and not where they drive.
Rural business and political leaders in Eastern North Carolina like theequity formula, which has helped pay for their push to four-lane every foot of U.S. 17 from South Carolina and Wilmington to ElizabethCity and Virginia.
"As you all know, this is a significant corridor that supports the needs of Eastern North Carolina," Jim Trogdon, the No. 2 man at the DOT, told members of the state Board of Transportation last week. U.S. 17 carries about 21,000 cars each day near Washington, a figure that has not changed since 2000.
Trogdon said the new 6.8-mile U.S. 17 bypass "is going to benefit drivers in Washington as well as Chocowinity by certainly improving mobility on this critical route."
Washington has grown in recent years, with an estimated 10,216 residents in 2008. But Chocowinity surely must be one of the smallest towns in North Carolina with a new four-lane, 70-mph bypass.
And it is getting smaller. The official 2008 estimate of 706 residents in Chocowinity marks a population drop of 27 since the 2000 Census.
Rolesville's long wait
Meanwhile, back in the Triangle, the northern Wake County town of Rolesville counted 907 residents in the 2000 Census, making it slightly larger than Chocowinity. Since then, Rolesville's population has nearly tripled, to an estimated 2,673 in 2008.
One of Wake County's top highway priorities is theperennially postponed widening of U.S. 401, a project that includes a Rolesville bypass. The DOT now expects to start work on the Rolesville bypass next year.
A House-Senate committee that oversees transportation issues will discuss the equity formula at a meeting scheduled for April 6. Triangle, Triad and Charlotte leaders are ready to lobby for changes.
"Right now the weight is favored toward the less urban areas," said Sen. Neal Hunt of Raleigh, a member of the oversight committee. "It certainly ought to have an ingredient for congestion, absolutely."
Rep. Jim Crawford of Oxford, also on the committee, says the equity formula has been good for North Carolina.
"The rural areas have a hard time getting their share, and that's why we have anequity formula," Crawford said.
