News

Balfour Parkway tops list as a traffic solution

A fix of the hazardous Erkwood Drive-Shepherd Street area of Greenville Highway is in construction plans, but not until 2015.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 3, 2013

Six months behind schedule, the Upward Road widening is expected to be finished next spring. Work on the Howard Gap Road straightening, leveling and widening continues, though it's only 11 percent complete. The DOT is repairing numerous bridges. The I-26 widening, derailed by a lawsuit 12 years ago, is still a long ways off. And Balfour Parkway, the city's long-awaited outer loop bypass, though nothing more than a line on paper now, ranks high as a long-range traffic solution.

At its quarterly update of all things asphalt, Henderson County's Transportation Advisory Committee heard about a new state highway funding formula — the "most significant NC transportation legislation since creation of the Highway Trust Fund in 1989," planners said — and their role in ranking projects for possible funding.
The new formula, pushed by Gov. Pat McCrory and adopted by the Legislature, sets aside 40 percent of the Highway Trust Fund for statewide "strategic mobility projects," 30 percent for regional projects and 30 percent for division projects, which are the most local ones and usually smaller in scale.
Local communities have no input on statewide strategic projects, some input on regional projects and lots of input on division-level projects, said DOT division engineer Steve Cannon and Henderson County planner Matt Cable.
For all its new complexities, the new formula actually appears to be more objective than what the state had, said Jim Crafton, the chairman of the Transportation Advisory Committee.
"The old smoke-filled room is getting ventilated, I think," he said.
A big new project like the Balfour Parkway must slog through an alphabet soup of ranking, scoring and public input functions, from the Comprehensive Transportation Plan to the Long-Range Transportation Plan to SPOT assessment (Strategic Office of Transportation Planning) to the State Transportation Improvement Plan.
The 11-member Transportation Advisory Committee is made up of at-large members Crafton, vice chair Renee Kumor and Keith Maddox, county commissioners Tommy Thompson and Mike Edney, county schools superintendent David Jones, and municipal representatives Don Farr of Flat Rock, Robert Vickery of Laurel Park, Steve Caraker of Hendersonville, Eddie Henderson of Fletcher and Roger Snyder of Mills River.
I-26 widening
The I-26 widening, blocked 10 years ago by a federal lawsuit brought by environmentalists, is back on the DOT's list for construction but still a long way off. It's set for construction in 2020.
"In other words we're starting over," Larry Rogers, the director of the Partners for Economic Progress, muttered when Cannon, the division engineer, described the studies, right-of-way acquisition and environmental permitting the DOT must complete before letting a construction contract.
Balfour Parkway
The idea of an outer loop to divert traffic from the middle of Hendersonville has been in the planning and talking stages since the 1960s. The son of the old Clear Creek Connector, which the Hendersonville City Council killed in the late 1990s, the proposed Balfour Parkway was first drawn by former Councilman Jon Laughter, a civil engineer.
It's still only a line on paper but it has a shot at getting funding if the local TAC sticks together and pushes it ahead through the French Broad MPO.
"I think the Balfour Parkway is a realistic project," Crafton said. "It has worked its way up very well on the priority list of our county needs. One of the strengths of the Henderson County TAC is we have been able to bring our municipal representatives and the MPO together to reach consensus on what roads are most important overall to our county and we've been able as a voting bloc in terms of prioritization to put forward our projects. One of the analyses DOT did years ago that's still true today is that a major part of the traffic goes through Main Street and Seventh Avenue."
The parkway would go from U.S. 64 at Howard Gap Road, intersect with I-26 in a new interchange near Clear Creek Road and end at N.C. 191 — creating a bypass northwest of downtown Hendersonville.
Although planners have yet to put a cost on it, Balfour Parkway would cost millions for right of way, permitting and construction. It would compete against other local, regional and state projects — at a time when better fuel mileage is shrinking the Highway Trust Fund.
"The reality of Balfour Parkway is obviously some years away," Crafton said. "The I-26 widening, which got killed and is back on the agenda, actually has a date for right-of-way and construction and Balfour Parkway is still in planning and evaluation stage."
Inner Loop
If the Balfour Parkway is the big daddy of possible road projects, the Inner Loop project is lots of little segments to improve the streets motorists use between thoroughfares like Four Seasons Boulevard, Greenville Highway, Asheville Highway and Spartanburg Highway.
Pieces of the Inner Loop, clockwise from the north, are Berkeley Road, East Duncan Hill Road, Dana Road, Tracy Grove Road, Airport Road, Shepherd Street, Erkwood Drive, State Street, Hebron Street, West Lake Avenue and Blythe Street. Additional segments could include Whitted Street, Fifth Avenue West and White Pine Drive.
"It should be stressed that this ad hoc loop does not generally serve as a 'bypass,'" planners said. Instead, it provides better access to major roads. "Most trips use only a short segment of the 'loop,' typically in the initial or final leg of the trip."
"We don't have a master plan of all the Inner Loop that says we want to do this piece, that piece and that piece," Crafton said. "Years ago we had a map of all the ideal pieces of the Inner Loop. Most of the rest was really improvements to make connections and improve roads between them. Balfour Parkway is a new road where none exists."
At last week's TAC meeting, County Commissioner Tommy Thompson questioned the piecemeal approach.
"One of the things I'm hearing, especially on the south end, is the town needs to have a loop around Hendersonville," he said. "If you're going to make a loop, make a loop."
Upward Road
The completion date of the $24 million widening project from Howard Gap Road to Spartanburg Highway has been pushed back to May 1, 2014, Cannon said. Started in May 2010, the project was supposed to be done by August. The DOT has imposed a fine of $2,000 per day against the contractor, Blythe Development of Charlotte, since Aug. 22. "However, liquidated damages are not assessed until project completion and any pending claims are settled," Cannon said.
Commissioner Thompson said the contractor seems at times to be working at a leisurely pace.
"I'll ride through there one day and you've got one machine and three men working and another day you've got 50 people working," he said. "I've always thought if you got something going get it done. They don't seem to care."
Current road projects
Here is an update on current road projects:
• Work is under way on bridge replacements over Clear Creek and Kyles Creek on Fruitland Road.
• Work is under way on grading, drainage, paving and a culvert at the bridge over Devil's Fork Creek on Dana Road..
• A contract is set for letting next May to modify a traffic island and allow left turns on U.S. 25 at Cureton Place near Naples.
• A public workshop will be held on proposed improvements to the unaligned intersections of Erkwood Drive and Shepherd Street on Greenville Highway. A contract is scheduled to be awarded in February 2015. The DOT had considered a roundabout but study revealed a historic property that likely will eliminate that option.
• Two bridges on Little River Road in Flat Rock are scheduled to be completed in October.
• Contracts are to be awarded in February 2014 to replace a bridge over Featherstone Creek on Locust Grove Road and a bridge on Stepp Mill Road.
• The Okalawaha Greenway extension from Patton Park to Berkeley Park is scheduled for 2015.