DURHAM — Budget-writers in the state House appear intent on forcing the N.C. Department of Transportation to redo a ranking of so-called “urban loop” projects that appeared to make funding Durham’s East End Connector all but certain last year.
During a redrafting of the 2011-12 budget last week, a House Appropriations Committee panel added language that requires the agency to assess the loops’ value based on the a measure of “mobility benefits” that it’s preparing to use on a broader array of projects.
The new yardstick would put a heavier emphasis on travel-time savings than the ranking system DOT engineers employed while assessing the East End Connector and other loop projects around the state last year.
DOT officials are monitoring the budget bill but have already concluded they’ll have to redo their rankings — and the spending plans they shaped — “if the legislation ends up as it’s currently written,” agency chief spokesman Ted Vaden said.
That’s a big “if,” as the budget has to survive a series of House floor votes, a review by the N.C. Senate and the scrutiny of Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Members of the House panel signaled earlier this month that they want to begin winding down the loop program, which since 1989 has reserved money each year for big new roads for Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Fayetteville, Gastonia, Greensboro, Greenville, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem.
Instead, they want to channel money into the “mobility fund” the General Assembly set up last year at Perdue’s urging to pay for major transportation projects across the state.
Advocates of the switch acted last week to blunt worries that the state would walk away from the loop projects entirely. Those advocates added a provision to the draft budget that says money reserved until now for loops should remain earmarked for them.
If it holds, that decision would be good news for the East End Connector, as the project appears to create greater travel-time-savings than many other proposed loops.
But if legislators soften or eliminate the grandfathering provision, the $182 million connector might not fare well.
DOT engineers have already done some back-of-the-envelope work comparing potential travel-time savings to likely construction costs. It suggests the connector could fall behind other projects that haven’t enjoyed the loop label.
Just in Durham, agency analysts suspect it would be more cost-effective to do an as-yet undesigned, $80 million widening of N.C. 54 from Interstate 40 to N.C. 55 than to build the East End Connector, which would link the Durham Freeway to U.S. 70.
The travel-time gauge could yield some results that legislators may not intend.
In Charlotte, for example, it would imply that DOT should get behind a planned commuter rail link between that city’s downtown and the northern Mecklenburg County suburbs near Davidson College. But some of the House members pushing the use of travel-time benchmarks are known to be opposed to rail projects.
Relatively low-dollar projects could also get a leg up.
For instance, there’s enough potential travel-time savings over the years for pedestrians in south Durham that a $7.8 million bridge carrying the American Tobacco Trail over I-40 might rate higher than several costly loop projects, especially since the state mobility fund would only have to cough up $1.6 million for the crossing, according to DOT’s figures.
Vaden cautioned that the engineers’ preliminary scan “is not official, exhaustive, complete or final,” not the least because they aren’t sure about how the budget will read, what projects will get mobility-fund consideration or the exact rating formula they’ll have to use.
Not to mention, of course, that they also have to wait to see “how much funding is available,” he said.
April 26, 2011
By Ray Gronberg
