CHARLOTTE - Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore launched a Web-based commercial Thursday that attacks Democratic rival Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue for championing a bridge in her hometown, New Bern, that he said has little traffic.

The two-minute video, e-mailed to 10,000 supporters, shows footage of the mostly empty bridge at morning rush hour. That's contrasted in the ad with footage of congested roads in Charlotte, Raleigh and the Triad.

"Isn't it time we got politics out of North Carolina's transportation decisions?" the ad says.

The ad questions Perdue's priorities and attempts to appeal to the state's urban residents, many of whom are frustrated by congestion.

"Did you see those interchanges over water?" Moore said Friday morning at a forum with the Charlotte Chamber's Regional Roads Committee, in which he showed a clip of the ad.

Perdue's campaign countered Thursday by saying the bridge was needed because the old bridge had been declared "structurally deficient." Her campaign noted that the old bridge was rated lower than the Interstate 35 West bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last year.

"The bridge's sufficiency rating was twice as bad as the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota. It's a shame that Richard Moore cares more about his campaign than he does about the safety of North Carolina's drivers," Perdue campaign spokesman David Kochman said in a news release.

The $120 million bridge, opened in 1999, crosses the Trent and Neuse rivers and is a bypass for New Bern.

Changing how North Carolina builds and funds roads is expected to be an important part of the campaign. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who is running for the Republican nomination, has repeatedly criticized the state's equity formula, saying it doesn't give fast-growing urban areas enough money for roads.

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