Rte 17 and F Troop | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    A couple of weeks ago in looking at the latest county budget recommendation coming out of the Office of the County Manager, I offered up some comments about the Rte. 17 lobbyist, questioning the amount of money we are spending on the activity and the results that have been achieved. The lobbyist was retained by the county several years ago to ensure that the state DOT paid proper attention to planning for turning Rte. 17 into a four lane (largely limited access) highway between Virginia and South Carolina and including it in the TIP. It was suggested that after getting a slick Power Point presentation every so often and not much more, it may be time to look at what we have been getting for our money. It was not much of a surprise that the comments seemed to fall on deaf ears.

    Getting the Washington bypass constructed was intended to decrease congestion and improve highway safety. The congestion was to be improved by allowing the through traffic unimpeded passage around our town. At the same time, that would help improve driving safety for both the folks on the bypass as well as the local traffic in town. The safety would be enhanced by significantly reducing congestion in town and keeping the through traffic on the bypass. Everybody wins. (BTW, as much lead time is involved in bringing a project like the bypass to fruition, it seems unlikely that our lobbyist contributed much to making it happen, but maybe he did.)

    In any case, if the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) wasn't to sad, it would almost be funny. What's funny about the Rte 17 Washington bypass project is how long it took to come to fruition (you can thank the tree huggers and DENR for that) and how little planning seemed to take place in anticipation of the road being opened.

    We first work like everything to get Rte 17 "four laned" around Washington. We even hired a lobbyist to help move the Rte. 17 improvements along. After years of planning, environmental review, engineering design, solicitation of bids for the construction and seemingly endless months of construction, the bypass which includes the several mile long "bridge" across the Tar river (and associated "wetlands") is completed. When the road is finally opened, almost the first thing we hear is that our public safety folks from Washington and Chocowinity are trying to figure out who is responsible for what in terms of responding to accidents on the bridge, etc. Surely the opening of the bridge wasn't that much of a surprise. It's not as though the planning, environmental reviews and construction (including the hiatus to allow the migrating fish to pass undisturbed by construction noise) hadn't been going on for what seemed like an eternity?? But yet, we don't even bother with thinking about how to handle responses to accidents until after the bridge is opened?? Well.... I suppose it's better than waiting until there was a big pileup on the bridge to start worrying about who does what.

    But then, not long after that when we start to realize the salutary effects of not having all the through traffic on the "old" Rte. 17, our merchants begin to grumble that the traffic through town is greatly diminished. Flash: that's what is supposed to happen when a bypass is built. (Surprise!!) There are a lot of folks around who thought that the whole idea of the bypass was to get all the "through traffic" off of the "old" Rte 17 through the middle of town (now the Business Rte 17) and they were right. And, guess what. It worked!! The bypass kept a lot of the through traffic out of town. Now the hue and cry is that we need to get more people off the by-pass and back on to Business 17 through Washington, so we put up some big advertising signs along the bypass to get the traffic back into town. Do you suppose that the signs out along the bypass will turn Washington to a "destination city"?? Say what?? Maybe a little "impulse buying" now and then, but a "destination city". I don't think so...

    So then what?? Another brainstorm!! We decide that we need a rest stop along the bypass and work with the Highway department to get one. It costs the local taxpayers a few dollars, but most of the money comes from the state (as though the "state's money" didn't come from the same people as did the "local" money). So what do you suppose the rest stop will do to the traffic into and through town?? Think about it for a minute and see how likely this scenario is. As through traffic leaves New Bern heading North or Williamston heading South they will likely be greeted with signs telling them that some number of miles up (or down) the road they will be coming to a "rest stop". People will stop at the rest stop, get out of their car, stretch, do whatever business they stopped to do, perhaps purchase a soft drink and maybe a snack, get back into their car and head on up (or down) the road. No detour into Washington for a "pit stop" or anything else. No need for one. Here we are trying to get passers by to stop in our town and leave some of their money, and then what do we do?? We make it easier for them not to stop. Do you suppose one (or more ) or our commissioners took a long road trip once and saw rest stops along the "big roads" they traveled which made them believe that our brand new "big road" needed one also?? Hmmm...

    So what have we learned?? Short answer: apparently nothing. It's enough to make F Troop look good (for those of you old enough to remember).

    D'ya think??