STEELE CREEK NEWS
Highway 160
Project Advances Through Prioritization Process
(April
28, 2016) Highway projects must survive through a series of
evaluation and prioritization processes by the
Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO)
and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) before
they can be funded and scheduled for construction. One local project
(the widening if Highway 160 from South Tryon Street south to the South
Carolina state line--see the blue section on the Map
below) is currently passing through those processes
and has survived through the first few steps.
This 2.2 mile
widening project has been evaluated
for prioritization along with other transportation projects for
possible funding after 2020. The resulting quantitative scores will
be supplemented with local input points by CRTPO and NCDOT.
The
project didn't receive high enough quantitative scores two years ago during Prioritization
3.0 to advance to the next steps, but it has this year in Prioritization 4.0.
It ranked 41 out of 103 Regional Impact projects in Region E and 21
of 29 projects in the CRTPO portion of Region E (Mecklenburg County and
most of Union County). See
P4.0 Highway Projects, Regional Impact Tier, Region E - Mecklenburg
and Union Counties, April 21, 2016.
CRTPO will assign local input points to projects based on its
adopted local input point methodology, which ranks projects based on
their
2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan scores. In this ranking, Highway 160 ranks 10 out of 29
local Regional Impact projects.
At the April 20 CRTPO meeting, staff announced that they propose for
CRTPO
to assign 100 local input points (the maximum) to the Highway 160
project. See the Region E Draft Regional Impact Highway Point Assignment
list on page 15 of the
Prioritization 4.0 (P4.0) presentation at the April 20 CRTPO meeting.
The listing for the Highway 160 project south of South Tryon Street is shown below.

In addition, Division 10 of NCDOT also will be assigning local input
points to supplement the P4.0 scores. According to the agenda for
the Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC) meeting for May 5, NCDOT Division
10 also plans to assign 100 local input points to the Highway 160
project.
CRTPO is expected to issue a media release on May 6 announcing the beginning of the
public involvement period for CRTPO's draft Regional Impact project
list proposed for local input point assignment. They also plan to
have a public meeting prior to the Wednesday, May 18 CRTPO meeting
at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.
Ultimately, the
assignment of local input points to projects will boost the
likelihood that they will appear on the next Statewide
Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). The draft STIP will be
issued at the end of 2016, and the final STIP will be approved in
late 2017. As long as the widening of Highway 160 south of S Tryon
Street continues to appear on lists, it has a good chance of
receiving future funding.
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At the 2016 Steele Creek Residents Association Annual Meeting in
February, Robert
Cook, CRTPO Secretary, reported that the State Transportation
Improvement Program (STIP) released by the North Carolina Department of
Transportation (NCDOT) last year includes funding for two Highway 160 projects.
See
Highway 160 Projects Continue to Move up in Schedule.
Construction is now expected to begin in 2017 on improvements to the
intersection of Hamilton Road and Highway 160 (Project U-5762
on the map to the left).
The
right-of-way acquisition for the widening of Highway 160 from Shopton Road W to S Tryon Street (Project U-5766) is
now scheduled to begin in 2020 with construction beginning
in 2022.
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