Bertie Commissioners Debate US 13, NC 11 Issue

by Cal Bryant - October 6th, 2006 - Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

At Monday’s Bertie County Board of Commissioners meeting, what began as a discussion over scheduling a Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) meeting turned towards the ongoing debate over improvements to highways 11 and 13.

This issue really is about where development will occur, either in Greenville or locally. Support for NC 11 is essentially support that our area will be subservient to Greenville and development will occur there, not here. Making it easier to get to Greenville makes Greenville the attractive place. There is no way that anyone trying to serve our area will expect Greenville people will drive to Ahoskie or Aulander. It certainly does not help Windsor in any way.

Support for widening U.S. 13 to make a North South corridor that includes Murfreesboro, Ahoskie, Windsor, Williamston, Washington and New Bern, means that developers can draw from a wider audience when planning anything along that North-South corridor. It gives every town on that corridor a better chance to attract development. That includes both Ahoskie and Windsor.

If you want to attract development to our area, widening NC 11 is a loser to US 13. Certainly the proposal to give up a certain road improvement, the already scheduled US 13 upgrade to a freeway, for a possible widening of NC 11 that will delay road improvements in the best of cases, is a poor choice. The US 13 project must proceed. If widening NC 11 still makes sense it should be done on its own merits.

The Bertie County Commissioner's have established a public meeting to discuss our transportation future on October 16th at 4:00 PM.