THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9407010372
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
It didn't take Pasquotank County Commissioners long to decide Thursday that a proposed U.S. 17 bypass of Elizabeth City would quickly take that bustling Albemarle community from here to nonentity.
After an inspection tour with R. V. Owens III, the Albemarle member of the N.C. Board of Transportation, several county officials said lack of planned local access to the bypass would leave Elizabeth City all but marooned.
``We need at least two off-ramp connectors to bring regular business into the downtown area,'' said Commissioner Zee B. Lamb, reflecting a county board consensus.
Some board members also told Owens they thought the bypass should run farther west of Elizabeth City through currently open farmland. At least two of the presently proposed routes would go through inhabited areas and would probably involve complicated right-of-way and condemnation proceedings, a DOT spokesman said.
``This has always been a claustrophobic community,'' Board Chairman W. C. Witherspoon said. ``By moving the bypass farther out, it'll give us more room to expand in the future.''
The Pasquotank commissioners favor a bypass that would leave the present multi-laned U.S.17 near a new state prison now under construction about four miles north of Elizabeth City and rejoin U.S.17 at a point below the Foreman-Bundy road south of the community.
Within the city limits traffic now bottlenecks on U.S. 17-Business in an obstacle course of stoplights and turn lanes.
But while the N.C. Dept. of Transportation has drawn up four alternate routes for the Elizabeth City bypass, none of the plans include any estimates of how much the connectors will cost - or where they might be located.
``Two of the four plans show no connectors at all,'' said Donald R. Connor, DOT division engineer in Ahoskie. Connor accompanied Owens and the commissioners on a tour of the proposed bypass connector routes.
``Considering what it cost to fourlane U.S. 17, I think the connectors into downtown Elizabeth City would cost about $2.5-million a mile,'' Connor said.
The DOT's Transportation Improvement Plan calls for spending $33.7-million to finish the Elizabeth City bypass by the year 2001, with work starting in 1996.
``We haven't completed the planning and the connector roads will have to be worked into the overall cost,'' Connor said.
All of the commissioners agreed that one of the proposed connectors should be an extension of Halstead Blvd., a major multilaned thoroughfare that now leaves U.S. 17-Business in the commercial area and leads south toward Elizabeth City State University, the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station and Weeksville.
Commissioner William C. ``Bill'' Owens, in urging the Halstead Blvd. bypass connector, said it would provide convenient access to all of Elizabeth City's business and shopping centers.
``I'll fight for you with all of these ideas,'' R. V. Owens told the commissioners. ``It's obvious we'll have to have connectors in the right place.'' The connectors and the final bypass plan will require the approval of the full Board of Transportation.
Although they are close political friends in the Democratic Party, R. V. Owens is not related to ``Bill'' Owens. R.V. Owens is a Dare County restaurateur, while ``Bill'' Owens operates a North Carolina moving and storage business based in Elizabeth City.
The commissioners further recommended that another connector be built to join the proposed bypass via Main Street Extended. This would divert city-bound traffic from U.S. 17 north of town. by CNB