INC NEWS - City seeks funds for East End Connector (today's Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

For more information on the East End Connector, see...
www.durhamloop.org

~John

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City seeks funds for East End Connector 
By Ray Gronberg, Herald-Sun, 12 January 2006

Durham officials are pressing the state Department of
Transportation to make sure the long-delayed East End
Connector receives construction funding in the next
edition of the state's seven-year road-building
program. 

Paying to build the 2-mile link between the Durham
Freeway and U.S. 70 would cost the agency almost $65
million. But Durham leaders say it's time for the
community to reap some benefit from the state's
efforts to build loop roads around its major cities. 

"Over the next seven years, there's a little over $1
billion [for loops], and we want one-tenth of that,"
said Mark Ahrendsen, the city government's
transportation manager. "Given that there are 10 loop
cities, that's not an unreasonable request." 

Ahrendsen and other local leaders tried to drive that
point home Monday during a meeting with state
Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett, a senior aide
to Gov. Mike Easley, and a variety of top
administrators at DOT. 

State officials listened to Durham's case but made no
promises. They're scheduled to release a draft of the
2007-13 construction program in April. 

The two sides agree on the importance of the project
to Durham and the Triangle, State Highway
Administrator Len Sanderson said. 

"I thought they made a very good presentation, and
from our standpoint, not judging it against other
projects, but looking at that project, and looking at
the region and its transportation needs, it's a good
project," said Sanderson, who participated in Monday's
meeting. 

Durham leaders have been urging DOT to build a link
between the freeway and U.S. 70 since the late 1950s,
and say they consider it the oldest unfunded highway
project in the state. 

The idea is to run a new stretch of highway toward
U.S. 70 from the Durham Freeway starting from a point
about a mile south of the freeway's existing
interchange with Briggs Avenue. The connector would
cross a mostly vacant stretch of land bracketed by
Carter Avenue, Rowena Avenue and East End Avenue
before joining U.S. 70. 

The connection to U.S. 70 would give motorists a way
to travel between northern Durham and Research
Triangle Park, and provide a now-missing link between
interstates 40 and 85. 

Like Sanderson, Ahrendsen thinks local officials and
DOT appear to be on the same page on the basics. 

"I don't think there's any disagreement on the need
for the project, and [on] the general design and scope
for the project," he said. 

The barrier to the project's construction has been its
cost, and a bit of politics. 

The East End Connector is a fairly complicated project
for its size because DOT will have to build two major
interchanges and at least one railroad crossing,
factors requiring a lot of expensive bridge
construction, Sanderson said. 

There's also no shortage of competition for the
state's loop-building money. 

Seven cities -- Asheboro, Charlotte, Greensboro,
Winston-Salem, Durham, Raleigh and Wilmington --
received a claim to those dollars when state officials
established the loop program in 1989. 

Two years ago, legislators also made Fayetteville,
Greenville and Gastonia eligible for the program. 

Sanderson said it's too soon to say how the East End
Connector will stack up in the competition for funding
this spring. 

To date, much of the loop money has flowed to projects
in Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte, Ahrendsen said. 

"They had projects ready to go, and, understandably,
that's where the dollars went. It took our community
awhile to come to consensus," Ahrendsen said, alluding
to the long debate over another potential bypass, Eno
Drive. 

Monday's meeting was orchestrated by Durham lawyer Ken
Spaulding, a member of the state Board of
Transportation. He said Durham has to make the case
for the East End Connector now rather than waiting on
the draft construction program. 

"It's a lot more difficult to try to undo something
where you'll be taking funds away from another [DOT]
division's projects," Spaulding said. "My feeling was
to get on this early and try to get on in rather than
try to deal with it after the fact." 

Ahrendsen and Sanderson said about $150 million in
loop money will be up for grabs in the next edition of
the road program. 

The current edition of the program earmarks about $20
million for right-of-way acquisition and other
preliminaries to the road's actual construction. The
extra funding Durham is requesting is what engineers
need to actually follow through and build it.