NCDOT Secretary: We want to accelerate I-540 project
Triangle Business Journal, July 14, 2017
State officials hope to accelerate the much-anticipated 'Complete 540' project.
That’s according to North Carolina Department of Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdon, who told a group of leaders at the Regional Transportation Alliance 2017 Transportation Breakfast he was close to an official announcement. “We are working diligently to accelerate [540],” he said. “Our plan is to have that accelerated where we can start advertising that in 2018.
Current NCDOT plans have the project moving forward in 2020.
Joe Milazzo, executive director of the RTA business coalition, has said repeatedly the priority is to accelerate that by two years. Trogdon cautions that a 540 acceleration is not yet official. “We are very close to being able to lock it down and make that announcement,” he said.
RTA panelists, too, called it a huge priority.
“I-40 is essentially our main street,” said Pete Marino, RTA Freeways chair and attorney with Smith Anderson, adding that protecting that asset is a top concern. “One of the key ties and ways to do that… that’s getting 540 connected to 40 in southern Wake County as quickly as possible… so we can help really relieve some of that congestion on I-40 and keep our Main Street, for better or worse, moving as quickly as possible.”
And he says it’s an economic development issue, too, as companies considering expanding in North Carolina are looking at how a state’s government supports vital infrastructure projects.
Initially, NCDOT had broken up the project into two phases. Instead of prioritizing just one project section, from Highway 55 in Apex to Highway 401, NCDOT’s latest plan calls for pushing ahead on two segments, meaning construction all the way from 55 to I-40.
Further work on the loop toward Knightdale is scheduled to happen in 2027. But 540 isn’t the only project that could improve congestion in the state.
John Dillard, resident vice president of state relations for CSX Transportation, said a planned intermodal hub in Rocky Mount, too, could do its part. CSX expects the hub to take 270,000 truckloads off North Carolina highways each year, transferring much of that traffic to rail lines.
He says the project, expected to break ground in 2018, is going to provide Triangle businesses with “direct competitive access to national and global markets on a scale we really think is important and critical.”
Both Trogdon and DIllard told the crowd to make their voices heard when it came to transportation priorities. Dillard noted that, when there's opposition to a project, they're good at making their voices heard. Supporters, on the other hand, can be subtle.
While he didn't specifically mention Johnston County, it was the opposition of a handful of its residents that led the project to relocate to Rocky Mount. He said project supporters, too, should "show up." “If a hundred people who are opposed to it [show up] and there are five that are for it… that’s a tough thing,” he says.