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Reprinted with permission from
The Courier=Times Online
Roxboro Mayor Steve Joyner has gone statewide with his plea for the widening of U.S. 501 North in Person County.
Tuesday, Joyner said he had sent a letter to editor of all newspapers in the state.
"I sent it out to 127 newspapers," Joyner said Tuesday.
Joyner, who is a member of the Roxboro/Person County Thoroughfare Advisory Committee, said the purpose of the letter was not only to bring attention to the 501 North project, but also the process of new road construction statewide.
"From what I've been able to understand from talking with people in other counties, both rural and urban, is that they are all, in some way, dissatisfied with what they are getting," Joyner said. "What I hope to do [by sending out the letters] is to make the public aware or better aware of the process. Maybe there will be others who see some common ground and maybe, with statewide exposure, it will begin some conversations."
In his statewide letter Joyner writes that he is "concerned about the methods used to improve our transportation infrastructure.
"As expressed by our county and municipal officials year after year, the results of the Transportation Improvement Program fail to adequately meet the needs of our citizens," Joyner added in his letter. "We must change the process in order to meet the needs of our urban areas and to help spur economic development in our rural communities."
Joyner’s letter offered the following suggestions:
• "We need to rethink the geography of our DOT divisions, taking into account the nature of the areas included in each division and their membership in the various Metropolitan Planning Organizations and Rural Planning Organizations. Here in rural Person County we are grouped with the very urban counties of Wake and Durham. As a result, we fail to receive funds for our road projects because of the obvious needs of our larger partners;
• "We need to rethink the so-called equity formula used to determine transportation funding. In addition to need, the formula should also take into account gas tax contributions from each county, population and economic development priorities;
• "Urban counties like Mecklenburg, Wake, Durham, Guilford and Forsyth should be allowed to impose local option gas taxes to fund new road construction, thus giving local officials the ability to respond to their constituents and meet their own transportation needs."
Joyner told The Courier-Times Tuesday that, in his mind, it would make more sense for Person County to be aligned in a division with counties such as Granville and Caswell.
"We have a lot more in common with Granville and Caswell counties than we do with Wake and Durham," Joyner said. "The bottom line is this letter is an effort to draw more attention to Person County…[The Thoroughfare Advisory Committee has] had discussions about being quiet, patient and standing in line waiting. Now, it is time for us to be more aggressive about our number one project.
"The widening of 501 should have been finished by now," Joyner added. "From my experience participating in the process, though, it has become painfully obvious that the process we have in place is not working."
Joyner closed his letter to the papers with a plea to government officials to work together toward an improvement for the state's transportation infrastructure.
"I call on the governor and the General Assembly to work with the state's counties and municipalities to change the way our state's transportation infrastructure is funded and to insure we develop methods for allocating resources that are fair to urban and rural citizens alike."