Ahoskie Bypass Opposition Exaggerates

From the start there has been a campaign of misinformation about the two road projects that impact our area. That continued yesterday

Though not on the agenda for the Bertie County Commisioner's Meeting, some representatives of the group in opposition to upgrading U.S. 13 as a part of the long term plan for a North South corridor serving Eastern North Carolina spoke during "Public Comments" against the Bertie County position. There are two projects, the U.S. 13 Ahoskie bypass and the widening of NC 11. Bertie County Commissioners believe both projects should be built. The NC 11 project serves the North end of Bertie County, and the U.S. 13 project serves the entire county.

Gary Terry (shown below) started the opposition group's comments with "An injustice is being done to families and citizens, the bypass to Windsor is unnecessary." He then focused his comments on the idea that Windsor did not deserve to retain U.S. 13 traffic, but that U.S. 13 should be moved to the NC 11 route and NC 11 widened down to Bethel because it would better serve Ahoskie.




There is a strong argument they are wrong, that a Freeway Bypass of Ahoskie, the road they are opposing, would better serve Ahoskie's interests. The idea that NC 11 better serves Ahoskie is based on the premise that allowing people along NC 11 to get to Greenville easier does not hurt local businesses. This is simply not credible. How is helping people take their local business to Greenville a help to Ahoskie?

Some background to this issue is needed. The Bertie County Commission has supported both widening NC 11 and upgrading U.S. 13 to a Freeway, with the first stage being the Ahoskie "bypass". The Group Terry represents is not happy with doing both projects and wants to kill the plans to ultimately create a Freeway from I-64 in Norfolk to I-40 near Wilmington. This would connect the Inner Banks more effectively to the Tidewater area and its large city services, as well as tie our area to the rest of the Inner Banks and cities like Washington, New Bern, Jacksonville and Wilmington.

The next step in this long term plan requires that the Ahoskie Bypass be built. If it is not built as a Freeway, there will never be a North South high speed corridor tying us to to the rest of the coastal region. Terry claims only Windsor would be served by the new Freeway. This is not true and ignores the fact that many people in the Inner Banks believe we need the North South Freeway corridor to both help us get to other places quickly as well as bring people from long distances to enjoy the hunting and enviro tourism that our area has the potential to provide.

The next person to speak, Kent Williams (shown below) is quite angry about the fact that every one of the alternatives for the U.S. 13 upgrade will affect him personally, since he lives on U.S. 13 and the end of this first upgrade project will be right at his farm. He started his comments by blasting the DOT for not notifying "a single person in Bertie County" about the upgrade. Though he gave some anecdotal evidence he claims proves his case, the next speaker in public comments was from the DOT.




Kim Gillespie (shown below), Project Planning Engineer for the Ahoskie U.S. 13 "Bypass" gave specifics of the public notification process, including explaining specifically how the G.I.S. system was used to get addresses for the more than 1,000 people who were notified. In checking with some local Realtors they assured me that the G.I.S. system is extremely accurate except for very recent changes of ownership, and after talking with 2 different people who own land affected by at least one alternative of the project, both confirmed that they had received notice.





I would probably be more interested in continuing to determine the accuracy of Kent's statement if the "No U.S. 13 Bypass" group had not already been caught in a number of mis-statements, exaggerations and falsehoods. One of the people they have contacted told me of their completely false allegation that the DOT would be buying 1000 feet of right of way from the center line on both sides of the road. The truth is the right of way acquisition will be 250 to 300 feet total, and if built as a freeway will be away from the existing roads minimizing impact on homes and farms. The group earlier mis-stated state ownership of right-of-way along NC 11. This groups seems perfectly willing to exaggerate anything, to the point some of their statements are simply false. A perfect example is their claim that the NC 11 project will not impact any homes or farms. This is simply not true considering the towns it will go through and the great distance below the river where no right of way has been purchased at all. With this track record how can we give credibility to anything they say?

Another questionable tactic is the placement of signs by this group. When I ran for public office I was informed that it was illegal to place signs on public right of way. Almost every sign I see for this group is on public right of way. Most groups that are advocating a public position are not so indifferent to the laws of our country.





There is a meeting tonight at the Hertford County High School to drum up support to oppose the U.S. 13 Ahoskie Bypass.

Some earlier articles on this subject can be found here, here and here