Road chief's hometown gets millions

Other N.C. cities protest the $270 million going to Fayetteville for its highway loop. A $270 million allocation to complete the Fayetteville Loop is protested by other N.C. cities

RALEIGH -- The N.C. Board of Transportation is pumping $270 million in road money into Fayetteville, the hometown of Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett and of a key legislative ally, weeks before Tippett leaves office.

At meetings in October and November, the board approved the money for work on a highway loop around Fayetteville, as road money has been drying up and cash for loops around the state's other cities has been delayed.

The funding comes in the waning weeks of the terms of Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, and Tippett, his appointee. Tippett is also a close friend of Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat who pushed for the loop money.

The move has officials in other cities up in arms.

"I don't know what their personal roles are," Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said, "but I know what the end result is."

Meeker, also a Democrat, said highway money has flowed to Fayetteville in recent years as most large cities in the state have received little.

Rep. Becky Carney, a Charlotte Democrat and a co-chairwoman of a legislative committee that oversees transportation, said approval of the Fayetteville project leapfrogs the state's larger cities and drains a large portion of the money available for the entire state.

"That would be a travesty," Carney said, "if the bulk of our loop money went for one project."

Tippett shrugged off the criticism, saying whoever doesn't get money is bound to complain. The Fayetteville project has been in the works for years, he said, and it's more important now that the Army's Fort Bragg is expanding.

"Those people who are going to the front lines are entitled to a safe commute," Tippett said, "as much as those going to their banking and industrial jobs."

Nina Szlosberg, a member of the transportation board from Raleigh, said Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue and her administration will have a depleted bank account for transportation projects when they take office in January.

"It's important for the new administration to have the opportunity to determine where best to put our transportation dollars," she said.

Perdue campaigned on a pledge to change the board of transportation into a policy-making group instead of one that approves specific road projects.

"Governor-elect Perdue's goal is to prevent these types of disputes," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman, "by transforming the Department of Transportation, including prohibiting DOT board members from voting on specific projects."

Local officials across the state point out that the general pot of road money follows a set -- though much-criticized -- formula designed to make sure every region gets a fair share. But no such equation determines where loop money is spent. Those decisions are made by transportation officials in Raleigh.

Allocation rules needed

Nancy Dunn, a transportation board member from Winston-Salem, said clear decision-making steps should be established. "There should be some known process on how the money is allocated on loops," she said.

Construction was supposed to start this year on a 12-mile section of Raleigh's Outer Loop, I-540, in western Wake County. In 2005, the transportation department postponed construction by at least four years and said it might take until 2030 to finish the entire loop.

Last year, Charlotte's unfinished I-485 loop was pushed back by two years and now isn't expected to be completed for a decade.

But Fayetteville's loop was kept on schedule. The first leg opened three years ago and is handling about 9,000 cars a day. The southern leg of Charlotte's loop handles 120,000 cars a day.

When the state created a separate pot of money for urban loop projects in 1989, most of the money initially went to Charlotte.

The state has spent nearly $1 billion on Charlotte's Outer Loop, I-485, since 1990. Mecklenburg County's share of the state loop money has diminished in recent years as Raleigh, Greensboro and other cities have built or expanded loops.

"You've got the same amount of money with far more competition for the funding," Tippett said. "Nine communities would like their loops finished now."

Fayetteville was not included in the original list of cities for loops, but was added in 2003. Officials from other cities and some board members complain that it has now jumped to the head of the line.

Rand, the Senate majority leader, said Fayetteville was at the end of the line and the money has finally reached there.

"It's our turn now," Rand said.

Tippett argued that the military base closing and realignment process in 2005 shifted a major new command to Fort Bragg and the likelihood of additional jobs. Base commanders asked for various road improvements.

At the same time, the state was paying hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to companies such as Dell and Google to move to the state and create new jobs.

"Spending $200 or $300 million in Fort Bragg infrastructure improvements seemed to be a deal at the time," Tippett said.