NC NEWSLINE - In today’s highly partisan environment, it’s hard to get Republicans and Democrats to agree on much. But when it comes to North Carolina’s transportation infrastructure, both sides agree the current funding formula needs to be reworked.
Members of the House Select Committee on North Carolina’s Transportation Future held an initial meeting last week to discuss challenges, opportunities and strategic needs affecting the state’s transportation systems.
N.C. Dept. of Transportation Deputy Planning Director David Wasserman told legislators that for 13 years, the state has relied on the Strategic Transportation Investments (STI) law to score and prioritize which transportation projects get built in the state.
Based on how projects are scored and ranked, they may qualify for one of 22 ‘buckets’ of funding. A project deemed critical to the state’s mobility — like interstate maintenance or a bridge replacement – could score high enough to qualify for a larger portion of state dollars and move up the priority list. A project not chosen there could be selected for regional funding where 30% of the dollars are allocated. An even smaller project – perhaps a highway rail crossing or a bridge rehabilitation – could qualify as a division need and fall into a smaller funding bucket.
Growth outpacing state funding
Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick) said the road-tested formula may have worked in the past, but it’s not working now.
“The assumption is that Raleigh and Charlotte are getting most of the money and possibly the Piedmont, and that the eastern and western [parts of the state] are not getting projects even when their growth is exploding,” said Iler.
Iler said Brunswick County has doubled in size in the last 20 years but has not qualified for a larger slice of the STI pie.
“In the next 15 years, they got 70,000 housing units being permitted, and we’re connected to the Myrtle Beach area with about half a million people,” said Iler. “That doesn’t seem to count on a statewide level.”
Rep. John Torbett said North Carolina is overdue for a comprehensive, bipartisan study to show how recent growth has impacted the state. Transportation decisions made a decade earlier might be funded differently today based on how the population has shifted.
“I think significant alterations may be needed to the process based on those outcomes,” said the Gaston County Republican.
But Torbett said that’s not the only problem.
“We have more projects than we have the funds to accommodate,” said Torbett. “Maybe we’re reaching for too many needs, and we need to channel that back.”
Torbett said the NCDOT also must do a better job managing expenses and deadlines.
“All I’m hearing these days instead of this project being completed is this project is delayed, this project is delayed, and this project is delayed based on inflationary cost overruns,” said Torbett.
Durham Democrat Rep. Zack Hawkins said from his perspective, it was shortsighted not to look at the statewide benefits of light rail in the Triangle. The initiative was viewed as a regional project and never ranked high enough to fall into one of the larger financial buckets.
“There were a lot of things about this project that were doomed from the start, but this was one of them and it shouldn’t have been,” said Hawkins. “I think about how many other major projects that are not in even urban areas that have been categorized wrong or miscategorized but could have had great benefit to the state.”
Rep. Carolyn Logan (D-Mecklenburg) agreed that the state needs to find a better way to manage rush hour traffic in metro areas beyond trying to add highway lanes.
“You can’t grow more land,” said Logan, a former state trooper. “We’re going to have to find other ways to get traffic moving, and that would be mass transportation. Regional railroad would be an excellent way, in my opinion.”
A 2022 study for GoTriangle estimated the cost of building a new commuter rail system to serve the region could be as much as $3.2 billion.
Interstate repairs in WNC may not be complete until 2028
A more immediate need is the completion of Interstate 40 in the mountains, said Rep. Alan Branson, a Guilford County Republican who owns a trucking company.
The NCDOT estimates the damage Hurricane Helene caused in 2024 to transportation infrastructure at $5.8 billion, with I-40 representing a $2 billion project.
“To date, we’ve spent about $1.4 billion on repairs out of that $5.8,” said Patrick Norman, NCDOT’s chief engineer. “We’re only about 25% of the way as far as expenditures.”
The NCDOT anticipates the full reopening of I-40 in western North Carolina in the summer of 2028.
Torbett suggested that while the cost would be huge, the state should investigate adding another route through the mountains should there be another storm or landslide like Helene.
The chief engineer said the agency could certainly study that request, but NCDOT expects the I- 40 infrastructure repairs to be sustainable.
“I wish we could get a bus of all North Carolinians to go look at that project. It’s astronomical,” said Torbett. “Literally half of that mountainside, half of those lanes of I-40 are just simply not there anymore. They’re downstream somewhere. It just seems like you could be there forever putting back rock where a rock used to be.”
Chris Lukasina, president of the N.C. Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, offered a reality check.
He told lawmakers population growth and congestion are far outpacing the state’s current resources.
He said lawmakers would be wise to look at all revenue options, with more areas now showing an interest in a local option sales tax to speed up regional projects.
Ahead of the April legislative session, Lukasina said the General Assembly also needs to find a way to preserve institutional knowledge at the NCDOT. The agency has had a vacancy rate hovering around 18%-20% for the past couple years.
“The folks there are very competent. There’s just a whole lot less of them doing the work compared to ten or fifteen years ago,” Lukasina said.
When the agency must rely on third-party consultants, it results in new funding challenges and the reality of projects continually starting, stopping and restarting, he said.
