THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040259
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: DUCK
``You won't find many big city street projects in this program; not many new beltways,'' said R.V. Owens III, the Outer Banks member of the Transportation Board.
{REST} ``It's been a long time since we've passed a transportation improvement plan that puts the money in rural areas and in high-speed eastern highway corridors like U.S. 64 and U.S. 17,'' Owens said.
Normally the board would meet in a boardroom at the North Carolina Department of Transportation in Raleigh to change the detailed transportation improvement program that is designed to carry the state into the next century.
But this year Owens, the 37-year-old new kid on the board, planned the meeting for the plush Sanderling Inn in Duck. And he even invited two special guests to liven up the proceedings: actor Andy Griffith, who lives in Manteo, and Hall of Fame pitcher Jim ``Catfish'' Hunter, now a prosperous farmer in Perquimans County.
The board approved the 3-inch-thick road building plan without dissent.
While the money will be distributed for hundreds of highway projects throughout the state, a major part of the outlay will go to the eastern road improvements that Owens, who represents all of the state's northeast on the board, has been urging.
The projects approved include:
Accelerated expansion of U.S. 64 and U.S. 17. The board ordered U.S. 64 widened to four lanes all the way to Columbia, in Tyrrell County, by 2003 and on to Nags Head soon after that. U.S. 17 will be expanded to four lanes to the South Carolina border by 2001, three years ahead of schedule.
Accelerated widening of U.S. 17 between Hertford and Edenton and from Edenton to Windsor. This will complete the long-sought expansion to four lanes of the main Albemarle section of the highway, from the Virginia line north of Elizabeth City to Williamston where the road joins U.S. 64.
Bypasses to carry through-traffic around Elizabeth City, Williamston and Murfreesboro.
Widening by 1997 of N.C. 168 between the Virginia state line and Barco, N.C., where the road joins U.S. 158 to the Outer Banks. Right-of-way acquisition for a new Currituck Sound bridge between Aydlett and Corolla is to be finished by the year 2000.
Expansion to multiple lanes of U.S. 13, between Windsor and the Virginia border, west of the coast, and improvement of U.S. 158 between Winton and Roanoke Rapids.
The new plan represents a meeting of the minds between Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. and the 22 members of the Transportation Board. Hunt has been pushing for rural road-building, too, as a means of stimulating economic development. The board incorporated many of the governor's ideas in the plan approved Friday.
{KEYWORDS} ROAD CONSTRUCTION
by CNB