DOT funding fix puts US 401 back on track

After months of uncertainty, Franklin County leaders say the long-awaited widening of U.S. Highway 401 is back on schedule thanks to an emergency DOT funding deal.

Posted 10:00 p.m. Nov 26, 2019 — Updated 4:40 p.m. Dec 3, 2019

Laura Leslie

, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief

LOUISBURG, N.C. — It's clear from the subdivisions popping up like mushrooms that a lot of people want to live in Franklin County, a rural area north of Raleigh. The hard part is getting there.

U.S. Highway 401, the main route into Raleigh and the Triangle, is just a narrow, two-lane road for 20 miles from northern Wake County into Louisburg. As the area has grown, so has traffic, becoming a bumper-to-bumper crawl at rush hour.

A widening project, officially underway for years, has progressed slowly.

"We’ve been working on this for 35, 40 years, trying to get four lanes the full length," Louisburg Mayor Karl Pernell said.

Phase C of the project, now under construction, would widen 13 miles of U.S. 401, from Flat Rock Church Road south to just inside Wake County. But since this summer, Pernell has worried it would be delayed again by cashflow problems at the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

The DOT announced months ago it was facing a cash crunch, thanks to three years of record disaster recovery costs and higher-than-expected settlement costs after state courts threw out the Map Act, a state law the agency used for years to acquire land. Because it was nearing the minimum cash balance required by law, the agency put some 900 projects around the state on hold.

Lawmakers and Gov. Roy Cooper, under pressure from business groups, agreed earlier this month to a cash infusion to keep construction going.

Pernell wore a relieved smile Tuesday as he joined House Speaker Tim Moore, Rep. Lisa Stone-Barnes, R-Nash, whose district includes Franklin County, and other local leaders for an event announcing that the funding fix would keep the U.S. 401 project on track.

House Speaker Tim Moore and Rep. Lisa Stone-Barnes

"We passed legislation that put in, immediately, $190 million, as well as an additional $100 million next year, for a total of $290 million that can be used for projects throughout the state," Moore, R-Cleveland, said.

He credited Stone-Barnes for pushing for the fix to keep U.S. 401 widening on track.

"Folks don’t want to move to a community if they can’t get there because of traffic, right? Well, if you look in the Triangle, this is the best next direction to move," Moore said. "This has to get done."

Stone-Barnes said congestion on U.S. 401 can add up to 45 minutes to the trip to Raleigh.

"It affects not only morning commutes but emergency response times, economic development, the airport is just down the road here," Stone-Barnes said. "So, it’s critical for this part of Franklin County."

"We have so many people who work out of county," Pernell agreed. "Most of them work in Raleigh or the Triangle, so we’re tickled to death to see it move forward."

The local regional airport, Triangle North Executive Airport, is already busy and growing quickly, officials say, taking up a lot of the private business traffic that's been squeezed out of Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Widening U.S. 401 will make it even more attractive to corporate and private travelers to the Triangle.

Bill gives DOT a cash infusion, lots of new reporting requirements

Louisburg Town Councilwoman Betty Keith Wright said she avoids the road at rush hour but hears a lot from her constituents about the increasing bite traffic is taking out of their day.

"It’s gotten worse, but hopefully it will be better soon," Wright said. "I said when I was young, one day Raleigh and Louisburg will meet., and I think it’s obvious it’s doing that as we speak."

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