STEELE CREEK NEWS
Highway 160
Projects are Still under Consideration for Funding
(September
11, 2014)
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) is expected
to release its next draft Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) by
the beginning of December. The TIP will list highway projects that
are expected to receive funding over the next few years based on
anticipated available revenues.
Two Highway
160 projects still have a good chance of
being included in the funding plan:
1)
Highway 160 (Steele Creek Road) from Shopton Road West to S Tryon
Street - ID H111172-B - Widen to multi-lanes including bike
lanes and sidewalks - $38,965,000.
2) Intersection
of Highway 160 (Steele Creek Road) and Hamilton Road - ID H142094 -
Widen
intersection of NC Highway 160 (Steele Creek Road) and Hamilton Road
for additional capacity consistent with the future Steele Creek Road
cross section - $1,628,000.
The developers of
RiverGate currently are adding two right turn lanes at the Steele
Creek Road/Hamilton Road intersection to accomodate anticipated
increased traffic generated by the new Shops at RiverGate South. The NCDOT is
a separate, more comprehensive project.
Highway projects
have been ranked based on NCDOT Prioritization 3.0 scores and local
input points assigned by the
Charlotte Regional Transportation
Planning Organization (CRTPO) and the NCDOT Division 10 engineer.
Both CRTPO and NCDOT Division 10 assigned maximum local input points
to the two Highway 160 projects. This was due in part to the
overwhelming number of comments the Steele Creek community submitted
to CRTPO and NCDOT.
It is difficult
to compare rankings for different projects because they appear on
many different lists based on overlapping geography and different
classification levels. However, the two Highway 160 projects rank
high on the list of Regional Impact projects within the Division 10
portion of CRTPO (Mecklenburg County and parts of Union County).
Division 10 is within NCDOT Region E. (See
CRTPO/Region E Regional Impact Project Scores.)
Improvements to the
SteeleCreek Road/Hamilton Road intersection ranks #1 on the list of
44 projects,
and widening Steele Creek Road from Shopton Road West to S Tryon
Street ranks #8.
NCDOT will use the final project rankings to create the next draft TIP and
will circulate it for public comment beginning in
early December. It will be adopted by the North Carolina Board of
Transportation in June 2015. The TIP will be developed under the
Strategic Transportation Investments (STI) Law.
Funding is
not guaranteed for any project that is currently under
consideration, but both Steele Creek road projects still appear to have a good
chance for funding within the next five years.
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